yy 


LIBRARY 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

SANTA  BARBARA 


GIFT  OF 
MRS.  BRUCE  C.  HOPPER 


rfn&r-,  Aft,  *fy. 


BACON    vs.  SHAKSPERE 


FRANCIS    UACON. 


BACON  vs.  SHAKSPERE 


iSrtef  for  plaintiff 


BY 

EDWIN   REED 

Member  of  the  Shakespeare  Society  of  New   York 


Seventh  Edition 
revised  and  enlarged 


BOSTON 
JOSEPH    KNIGHT   COMPANY 

1897. 


Copyright,  1S96, 
By   Edwin   Reed. 


Entered  at  Stationer's  Hall,  London. 


Sinitorrsttti  $3rcss: 
John  Wilson  and  Son.  Cambridge,  U.S.A. 


TO 

Ety  honorable  IStcijarti  Cutts  Sfjannon 

ENVOY  EXTRAORDINARY  AND  MINISTER  PLENIPOTENTIARY 

OF    THE 

UNITED  STATES  OF  AMERICA 

TO    THE    REPUBLICS    OF 

NICARAGUA,  SALVADOR,  AND  COSTA  RICA 

THIS  BOOK  IS  INSCRIBED 
BY  THE  AUTHOR 


INTRODUCTORY. 


In  the  following  Brief  for  the  Plaintiff,  Bacon  vs. 
Shakspere,  in  an  action  of  ejectment,  now  on  trial,  it 
is  intended  to  cite  such  facts  only  as  are  generally- 
agreed  upon  by  both  parties,  or  which  can  be  easily 
verified,  and,  in  the  main,  to  let  those  facts,  trumpet- 
tongued,  speak  for  themselves.  Like  the  lines  that 
mark  the  sea-coast  on  our  maps,  each  separate  proof 
shades  off  in  a  thousand  fine  corroborating  circum- 
stances, which  are  often  very  interesting  as  well  as 
important  for  a  full  knowledge  of  the  subject.  The 
question  of  ciphers  is,  for  the  present  purpose  at 
least,  clearly  beyond  soundings. 

For  further  information,  the  reader  is  respectfully 
referred,  in  behalf  of  Bacon,  to  '  The  Authorship  of 
Shakespeare,'  by  Nathaniel  Holmes,  2  vols.  Boston, 
Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.,  1887;  and  to  'The  Great 
Cryptogram'  (first  part),  by  Ignatius  Donnelly, 
Chicago,  R.  S.  Peale  &  Co.,  1888;  and,  on  the  side 
of  Shakspere,  to  'The  Bacon-Shakespeare  Question 
Answered,'  by  Charlotte  C.  Stopes,  London,  Trub- 
ner  &  Co.,  1889;  to  'Studies  in  Shakespeare,'  by 
Richard  Grant  White,  Chap.  VI.,  Boston,  Houghton, 


viii  Introductory. 

Mifflin  &  Co.,  1886 ;  and  to  '  Wit,  Humor,  and  Shake- 
speare '  by  John  Weiss,  Chap.  VIII.,  Boston,  Roberts 
Bros.,  1876;  not  to  mention  numerous  others,  on 
either  side,  which  it  is  to  be  feared  the  world  will 
soon  be  too  small  to  contain. 


PREFACE   TO   SECOND   EDITION. 


We  may  say  of  improbabilities,  as  we  do  of  evils, 
"  Choose  the  least."  It  is  antecedently  improbable 
that  the  "  Shake-speare  "  plays,  for  which  the  whole 
domain  of  human  knowledge  was  laid  under  con- 
tribution, were  written  by  William  Shakspere  of 
Stratford,  for  he  was  uneducated.  It  is  also  ante- 
cedently improbable  that  Francis  Bacon,  whose  name 
for  nearly  three  hundred  years  has  been  a  synonym 
for  all  that  is  philosophical  and  profound,  who  was 
so  great  in  another  and  widely  different  field  of  labor 
that  he  gave  a  new  direction  for  all  future  time  to  the 
course  of  human  thought,  was  the  author  of  them. 
And  yet,  to  one  or  the  other  of  these  two  men  must 
we  give  our  suffrage  for  the  crowning  honors  of 
humanity. 

In  the  claim  for  Shakspere,  the  improbability  is  so 
overwhelming  that  it  involves  very  nearly  a  violation 
of  the  laws  of  nature.  No  man  ever  did,  and,  it  is 
safe  to  say,  no  man  ever  can  acquire  knowledge  in- 
tuitively. One  may  be  a  genius,  like  Burns,  and  the 
world  be  hushed  to  silence  while  he  sings ;  but  the 
injunction,  "  In  the  sweat  of  thy  face  shalt  thou  eat 


x  Preface  to  Second  Edition. 

thy  bread,"  is  everywhere  as  true  of  intellectual  as  it 
is  of  physical  life.  The  fruit  of  the  tree  of  knowledge 
can  be  reached  only  by  hard  climbing,  the  sole  in- 
stance on  record  in  which  it  was  plucked  and  handed 
down  to  the  waiting  recipient  having  proved  a 
failure. 

In  the  case  of  Bacon,  also,  the  assumption  may  be 
said  to  lie  on  the  very  boundary  line  of  credibility. 
It  implies  the  possession  of  faculties  seemingly  incon- 
sistent, if  not  mutually  exclusive ;  and  yet  to  a  cer- 
tain degree  it  is  not  without  precedent.  Fortune  has 
more  than  once  emptied  a  whole  cornucopia  of  gifts 
at  a  single  birth.  What  diversity,  what  beauty,  what 
grandeur  in  the  personality  of  Leonardo  da  Vinci ! 
He  was  author,  painter,  sculptor,  architect,  musician, 
naturalist,  civil  engineer,  inventor,  and  in  each  ca- 
pacity, almost  without  exception,  eminent  above 
his  contemporaries.  His  great  painting,  the  '  Last 
Supper,'  ranks  the  third  among  the  products  in  this 
branch  of  modern  art,  Raphael's  '  Madonna  di  San 
Sisto,'  and  Michael  Angelo's  '  Last  Judgment'  being 
respectively,  perhaps,  first  and  second.  At  the  same 
time,  he  was  the  pioneer  in  the  study  of  the  anatomy 
and  structural  classification  of  plants ;  he  founded 
the  science  of  hydraulics;  he  invented  the  camera 
obscura;  he  proclaimed  the  undulatory  theory  of 
light  and  heat ;  he  investigated  the  properties  of 
steam,  and  anticipated  by  four  centuries  its  use  in 
the  propulsion  of  boats ;  and  he  barely  missed  the 
great   discovery  which    immortalized    Newton.      In- 


Preface  to  Second  Edition.  xi 

deed,  we  see  in  Leonardo  da  Vinci  not  a  mountain 
only,  but  a  whole  range  of  sky-piercing  peaks. 

Another  illustrious  example  is  Goethe,  scarcely 
inferior  to  Bacon,  whatever  the  claims  made  for  the 
latter,  in  the  brilliancy  and  scope  of  his  powers.  As 
a  poet,  Goethe  was  a  star  of  the  first  magnitude,  a 
blaze  of  light  in  the  literary  heavens.  His  'Faust' 
is  one  of  the  six  great  poems  of  the  world.  As  a 
writer  of  prose  fiction  he  stands  in  the  front  rank,  his 
'  Wilhelm  Meister '  being  a  classic,  side  by  side  with 
'The  Heart  of  Mid  Lothian,'  '  Middlemarch,'  and 
'  The  Scarlet  Letter.'  By  a  singular  coincidence, 
also,  as  compared  with  Bacon,  he  was  one  of  the 
master  spirits  of  his  age  in  the  sphere  of  the  sciences. 
An  evolutionist  before  Darwin,  he  beheld,  as  in  a 
vision,  the  application  of  law  to  all  the  phenomena 
of  nature  and  life.  In  botany,  he  made  notable  addi- 
tions to  the  then  existing  stock  of  knowledge ;  and 
throughout  the  vast  realm  of  biology  he  not  only 
developed  new  methods  of  inquiry,  but  spread  over 
it  the  glow  of  imagination,  without  which  the  path  of 
discovery  is  always  doubly  difficult  to  tread. 

In  the  light  of  precedents,  therefore,  the  claim 
made  to  the  authorship  of  the  plays  in  behalf  of 
Bacon  cannot  be  discredited. 

E.  R. 
Andover,  Mass.,  September  1,  1890. 


PREFACE   TO   FOURTH    EDITION. 


Nothing  is  more  tenacious  of  life  than  an  old 
popular  belief.  It  has  the  force  of  habit,  which  the 
pressure  of  enlightened  opinion,  through  successive 
generations,  alone  can  overcome.  "  O  Lord,  thou 
hast  taught  us,"  once  prayed  a  good  deacon,  "  that 
as  a  twig  is  bent,  the  tree  's  inclined,"  —  a  truth  drawn 
from  the  Book  of  Nature,  and  as  indubitable  as 
though  the  writings  of  Pope  were  a  part  of  the  sacred 
canon.  Trees  that  have  unnatural  and  uncomely 
twists  in  their  branches,  even  if  growing  on  Mt.  Zion, 
must  be  permitted  to  die  of  old  age;  the  science  of 
arboriculture  is  powerless  to  affect  them.  Intelligent 
and  conscientious  scholars  among  us  are  still  defend- 
ing the  historical  verity  of  the  first  chapter  of  Gene- 
sis. A  personal  devil  is  as  potent  in  the  minds  of 
some  men  to-day  as  he  was  formerly  in  the  minds 
of  all.  How  often  one  hears  in  Germany  the  polite 
ejaculation  Gcsundheit  uttered  when  a  person  sneezes  ! 
Even  now,  many  people  turn,  almost  instinctively,  to 
see  in  which  part  of  the  heavens  the  moon  quarters 
for  a  forecast  of  the  weather,  though  it  has  long  been 
demonstrated  that  that  luminary  has  no  more  influence 


Preface  to  Fourth  Edition.  xiii 

in  this  branch  of  our  local  affairs  than  has  the  most 
distant  star  which  the  Lick  telescope  reveals  to  us. 

Unfortunately,  these  old  beliefs  and  habitudes 
linger  in  some  of  the  noblest  minds  to  the  last.  The 
shadow  of  a  solar  eclipse,  sweeping  over  the  earth, 
permits  the  just  and  the  unjust,  the  wise  and  the 
foolish,  to  emerge  into  the  light  behind  it  indiscrimi- 
nately. Evil  spirits  do  not  always  beg  the  privilege, 
when  they  find  themselves  about  to  be  exorcised,  of 
taking  refuge  in  a  herd  of  swine  and  leaping  over  a 
precipice  into  the  sea.  The  butcheries  of  the  Salem 
witchcraft,  marking  the  close  of  that  delusion,  were 
perpetrated  by  those  to  whom  the  love  of  God  was 
the  chief  end  of  man.  One  of  the  last  judges  in 
England  to  send  a  witch  to  the  gallows  was  Time's 
noblest  offspring,  Sir  Matthew  Hale.  The  last  in 
that  country  to  manumit  their  slaves  were  the  clergy. 
The  Garrison  mob  in  Boston  wore  broadcloth  on 
their  backs,  and  all  the  current  virtues  in  their 
hearts.  It  is,  therefore,  no  criterion  of  a  good  cause 
that  men  of  acknowledged  abilities  and  culture  sup- 
port it,  nor  of  a  bad  cause  that  such  men  denounce  it. 

Indeed,  Truth  has  a  modest  way  of  entering  the 
world  like  a  mendicant,  at  the  back  door.  Such  a 
guest  is  seldom  admitted,  on  his  first  arrival,  at  the 
other  end  of  the  house.  Copernicus  stood  there, 
shivering  in  the  cold,  thirteen  years  before  he  dared 
even  to  lift  the  knocker.  Every  great  religion  has 
sprung  up  among  the  poor.  Every  great  reform 
owes  its  origin  to  the  oppressed.     Every  great  inven- 


xiv  Preface  to  Fom'th  Edition. 

tion  has  had,  like  the  founders  of  Rome,  a  wolf  for  a 
nurse.  It  is  not  to  be  expected  that  rebellion  against 
a  king  of  poets  will  find  favor  among  the  nobility  that 
surround  his  throne.  The  high  priests  who,  with 
unsandalled  feet,  minister  in  a  sacred  temple,  will  not 
be  the  first  to  despoil  the  idol  they  worship.  No 
captain  in  that  "  fleet  of  traffickers  and  assiduous 
pearl-fishers,"  to  which  Carlyle  refers,  in  the  most 
eloquent  sentence  he  ever  wrote,  will  strike  his  colors 
or  change  his  outfit  so  long  as  the  products  of  his 
industry  under  the  old  regime  are  bringing  him 
wealth.  And  what  to  him  are  winds  and  waves  or 
any  storm  of  criticism,  whose  barque  is  anchored  to 
the  theory  of  miraculous  Inspiration !  Showers  of 
verbal  aerolites  on  the  mimic  stage,  only  a  product  of 
untaught  Nature ! 

Amid  the  turmoil  of  our  daily  life,  if  we  listen  rev- 
erently, we  may  hear  voices  crying  in  the  wilderness, 
perhaps  the  voice  of  a  woman,  alone  and  forsaken,  in 
a  strange  city. 

*'  No  accent  of  the  Holy  Ghost 
The  heedless  world  hath  ever  lost." 

From  the  banks  of  the  Missouri,  from  the  wheat- 
fields  of  Minnesota,  from  far-off  Melbourne  at  the 
antipodes,  out  of  the  heart  of  humanity  somewhere, 
a  response  in  due  time  is  sure  to  come. 

E.  R. 

Andover,  Mass.,  January  i,  1891. 


CONTENTS. 


Page 

I.    The  Author  of  the  "  Shake-speare  "  Plays  .  i 

II.     William  Shakspere u 

III.  Francis  Bacon 44 

IV.  Objections  Considered 118 

V.     Coincidences 184 

VI.    Disillusion,  a  Gain 264 

VII.    Biography  of   Shakspere  in   Fact  and  in 

Fiction 266 

VIII.     Summary 280 


Index 283 


LIST   OF    ILLUSTRATIONS. 


Page 

Francis  Bacon Frontispiece 

Signatures  of  William  Shakspere 15 

Signatures  of  Aldermen  and  Burgesses  of  Strat- 
ford, including  John  Shakspere's 17 

Title-page  of  First  Quarto  of  Hamlet  ....  21 

Signatures  of  John  and  Mary  Shakspere    ...  25 

Signature  of  Judith  Shakspere 25 

Signatures  of  Fulk  Sandells  and  John  Richard- 
son    25 

Bust  of  Shakspere  at  Stratford-upon-Avon    .     .  29 

Droeshout  Portrait  of  Shakspere 33 

Francis  Bacon  at  the  Age  of  Nine 45 

Signatures  of  Francis  Bacon  and  Others   .     .     .  77 

Key  to  Cover  of  Northumberland  MSS.      ...  84 

Cover  of  Northumberland  MSS {opposite)  84 

Ben  Jonson 89 

Globe  Theatre 131 

St.  Michael's  Church 179 

Queen  Elizabeth .221 

Frontispiece  of  the  '  Novum  Organum  '     .     .     .     .  253 

A  Spanish  Motto 256 

A  Wreath  of  Chivalry 257 

"  Quod  me  alit,  me  extinguit  "... 258 

"  Sic  spectanda  fides  " 259 

"In  hac  spe  vivo" 260 


LIST   OF   AUTHORS    CONSULTED. 


[Those  marked  with  a  *  favor  the  Baconian  theory  of  the  origin  of 
the  "  Shake-speare  "  plays.] 


Abbott,  E.  A.,  Introduction  to  Mrs.  Pott's  Edition  of 
Bacon's  Promus  (1882)  ;  Life  of  Bacon  (1885). 

Academy,  The,  April  21,  1894. 

Addison,  Joseph,  The  Tatler,  No.  267  (17 10). 

Aikin,  Lucy,  Court  of  James  I.  (1822). 

Allibone,  S.  A.,  Dictionary  of  Authors  (187 1). 

Athenaeum,  The  (1856,  1871,  1874). 

Aubrey,  John,  Biographical  MSS.  (1697). 

*  Bacon,  Delia,  The  Philosophy  of  Shakespeare's  Plays 
Unfolded   (1857). 

*Bacon  Society,  Journals  of,  London  (1886-90). 

Bartas,  Du,  The  Second  Week  of  Creation  (1584). 

Baynes,  T.  S.,  Fraser's  Magazine  (1879-80)  ;  Encyclo- 
paedia Britannica,  9th  ed.   (Art.  Shakespeare). 

Beaumont,  Francis,  The  Mask  (161 2). 

Blackwood's  Edinburgh  Magazine,  March,  1889. 

Blades,  William,  Shakespeare  and  Typography  (1872). 

Bradley,  Henry,  The  (London)  Academy,  April  21,  1894. 

Browne,  C.  Elliot,  Fraser's  Magazine  (1874). 

Bucknill,  John  C,  The  Psychology  of  Shakespeare  (1859). 

Burney,  Charles,  History  of  Music  (1789). 

Campbell,  Chief  Justice,  Shakespeare's  Legal  Acquire- 
ments (1859). 


xx  List  of  Authors  Consulted. 

Chettle,  Henry,  Kind  Heart's  Dream  (1592). 

Church,  Richard  W.,  Life  of  Bacon  (1884). 

Clark,  N.  G.,  Elements  of  the  English  Language  (1866). 

Clarke,  Charles  and  Mary  Cowden,  Preface  to  Works 
of  Shakespeare    (1866). 

Coleridge,  Samuel  Taylor,  Lectures  on  Shakespeare 
(1830). 

Collier,  J.  P.,  Notes  and  Emendations  (1853)  ;  Shake- 
speare's Works   (1858). 

Cooke,   James,    Preface   to  English   Bodies  by  John  Hall 

(1657)- 
Craik,  G.  L.,  English  Literature  and  Language  (1866). 
Creighton,  Charles,  Blackwood,  No.  145. 
Davis,  Cushing  K.,  Law  in  Shakespeare  (1884). 
Dickens,   Charles,  Dictionary  of  Oxford  and  Cambridge 

(1879). 
Digges,  Leonard,  Verses  to  Shakespeare  (1623,  1640). 
Dlxon,  Wm.  Hepworth,  Personal  History  of  Lord  Bacon 

(1861). 
*Donnelly,  Ignatius,  The  Great  Cryptogram  (1888). 
Doyle,    John     T.  —  Shakespeariana     (1893)  ;    Overland 

Monthly  (1886). 
Dowden,  Edward,  Shakespeare  :  His  Mind  and  Art  (1879). 
Dyer,  T.  F.  T.     Folk- Lore  in  Shakespeare  (1884). 
Elze,  Karl,  William  Shakespeare  (1874). 
Emerson,  Ralph  Waldo,  Representative  Men  (1876). 
Evelyn,  John,  Diary  (1641  to  1706). 
*Fearon,  Francis,  Journal  of  Bacon  Society  (1886). 
Field,  B.  Rush,  Medical  Thoughts  of  Shakespeare,  Second 

Edition  (1885). 
Fleay,   Frederic  Gard,   Life    and  Work   of  Shakespeare 

(1886). 
Florio,  John,  World  of  Words  (1597). 
Fowler,  Thomas,  Life  of  Bacon  (1881). 


List  of  Authors  Consulted.  xxi 

Friswell,  James  H.,  Life  Portraits  of  William  Shakespeare 

(1864). 
Fuller,  Thomas,  Worthies  of  England  (1662). 
Gervinus,  George  G.,  Shakespeare  Commentaries  (1863). 
Gifford,  William,  Life  and  Works  of  Ben  Jonson  (18 16). 
Green,    Henry,    Shakespeare    and    the    Emblem    Writers 

(1870). 
Greene,  Robert,  Groatsworth  of  Wit  (1592). 
Guizot,  F.  P.  G.,  Shakespeare  and  his  Times  (1852). 
Hallam,  Henry,  Introduction  to  the  Literature  of  Europe 

(i854). 

Halliwell-Phillipps,  J.  O.,  Outlines  of  the  Life  of  Shake- 
speare (1882). 

Harvey,  Gabriel,  Letters  and  Sonnets  (1592). 

Hawkins,  John,  History  of  Music  (1776). 

Hazlitt,  William,  Lectures  on  the  Dramatic  Literature  of 
the  Age  of  Elizabeth  (1821). 

Heard,  Franklin  Fiske,  Shakespeare  as  a  Lawyer  (1883). 

Hippocrates,  Presages  of  Death  (about  350  B.  C.) 

*Holmes,  Nathaniel,  The  Authorship  of  Shakespeare 
(1887). 

Hudson,  Henry  N.,  Shakespeare  :  His  Life,  Art  and  Char- 
acters (1872). 

Hume,  David,  History  of  England. 

Hunter,  Joseph,  Life  and  Studies  of  Shakespeare  (1845). 

Ingleby,  Clement  M.,  Shakespeare :  The  Man  and  the 
Book  (1877)  ;  Essays  on  Shakespeare  (1888). 

Ireland,  Samuel,  Picturesque  Views  on  the  Warwickshire 
Avon  (1795). 

Johnson,  Samuel,  Preface  to  Works  of  Shakespeare  (1765). 

Jonson,  Ben,  Epilogue  to  Every  Man  in  his  Humour ; 
The  Poetaster ;  Conversations  with  Drummond  (16 19)  ; 
Preface  to  First  Folio  Edition  of  Shakespeare  (1623)  ; 
Discoveries  (1637). 


xxii  List  of  Authors  Coiisulted. 

Knight,  Charles,  William  Shakespeare  (185 1). 

Langlin,  J.  N.,  Shakespeariana  (1884). 

Lowell,   James   Russell,    Among    my   Books,    1st    Series 

(1870). 
Lytton,  E.  Bulwer,  Edinburgh  Review  (1836). 
Macaulay,  Thomas  B.,  Essay  on  Lord  Bacon  (1837). 
Mallet,  David,  Life  of  Lord  Bacon  (1740). 
Malone,  Edmund,  Life  of  Shakespeare  (1821). 
Massey,  Gerald,  Shakespeare's  Sonnets  (1866). 
Matthew,  Sir  Toby,  Collection  of  English  Letters  (1660). 
Minto,  William,  English  Prose  Composition  (1886). 
Montagu,  Basil,  Life  of  Bacon  (1825). 
Morgan,    Appleton,    The    Shakespearean    Myth    (1881)  ; 

Shakespeare  in  Fact  and  in  Criticism  (1886). 
Morley,  Henry,  English  Writers,  Vol.  X.  (1893). 
Nash,  Thomas,  Epistle  to  University  Students  (1589). 
Newman,  Fra.ncis  W.,  The  Echo  (1887). 
Nichol,  John,  Francis  Bacon  :   His  Life  and  Philosophy, 

Parts  I.  and  II.  (1888). 
Norris,  Parker,  Shakespeare  Portraits  (1885). 
*0'Connor,  William,  Hamlet's  Note-Book  (1886). 
Oldys,  William,  O.  M.  (1761). 
Osborne,  Francis,  Advice  to  his  Son  (1656). 
Parmenides,  Poetic  Remains  of  (450  b.  c.). 
Pearson,  Charles  H.,  National  Life  and  Character  (1893). 
Pepys,  Samuel,  Diary  (165 9- 1669). 

*PoTT,  Constance  M.,  Edition  of  Bacon's  Promus  (1882). 
Quarterly  Review,  April,  1894. 
Rawley,  William,  Resuscitatio  (1657). 
Rf.musat,  M.  de,  Bacon  :  sa  vie,  son  temps,  sa  philosophic, 

et  son  influence  (1857). 
Rymer,  Thomas,  The  Tragedies  of  the  Last  Age  (1678). 
Schlegel,  A.  W.  von,  Lectures  on  Dramatic  Art  (1846). 
Shakespeariana  (1883- 1893). 


List  of  Authors  Consulted.  xxiii 

Shaw,  Thomas  B.,  English  Literature  (1852). 
Simpson,  Richard,  School  of  Shakspere,  2  Vols.  (1878). 
*Smith,  William  H.,  Bacon  and  Shakespeare  (1857). 
Spalding,  Thomas  A.,  Elizabethan  Demonology  (1880). 
Spedding,  James,   Philosophical,  Literary,  and  Professional 

Works  of  Francis  Bacon   (1858)  ;   Letters  and  Life, 

do.  (1870)  ;  Evenings  with  a  Reviewer  (1881). 
Stapfer,  Paul,  Shakespeare  and  Classical  Antiquity  (1880). 
Steele,  Richard,  The  Tatler,  No.  131. 
Stopes,  Charlotte  C,  The  Bacon-Shakespeare   Question 

Answered  (1889). 
*Stronach,  George,  Journal  of  Bacon  Society  (1888). 
Swinburne,  Algernon  C,  Study  of  Shakespeare  (1879). 
Taine,  H.  A.,  History  of  English  Literature  (1871). 
*Theobald,  Robert  M.,  Journals  of  Bacon  Society,  Vols.  I. 

and  II.   (1886-91);   Dethroning  Shakspere;  Baconi- 

ana   (1893-94). 
Ulrici,  Hermann,  Shakespeare's  Dramatic  Art  (1846). 
Verplanck,  G.  C,  Works  of  Shakespeare  (1847). 
Ward,  A.  W.,  English  Dramatic  Literature  (1875). 
Weiss,  John,  Wit,  Humor,  and  Shakespeare  (1876). 
Welsh,    Alfred    H.,    English    Literature     and     Language 

(1883). 
Whately,    Richard,     Bacon's     Essays,    with     Annotations 

(1864). 
Whipple,  Edwin  P.,  The  Literature  of  the  Age  of  Elizabeth 

(1865). 
*  White,  Thomas  W.,  Our  English  Homer  (1893). 
Wise,    John    R.,    Shakespeare :     His    Birthplace    and    its 

Neighborhood   (1861). 


If  we  look  carefully  into  the  matter,  it  is  not  on  the  prescribed  method 
of  Bacon  that  his  fame  was  built.  It  -was  the  power  of  divination  in  the 
man  which  made  him  great  and  influential.  —  Dr.  Ingleby. 

Bacon  was  the  prophet  of  things  that  Newton  revealed.  —  Horace 
Walpole. 

The  art  which  Bacon  taught  was  the  art  of  inventing  arts.  — 
Macaulay. 

The  glance  with  which  he  surveyed  the  intellectual  universe  resem- 
bled that  which  the  archangel  from  the  golden  threshold  of  heaven  darted 
down  into  the  new  creation.  —  Ibid. 

His  service  lay  not  so  much  in  what  he  did  himself  as  in  the  grand 
impulse  he  gave  to  others.  —  Prof.   Minto. 

//  se  saisit  tellement  de  P  imagination,  qu'il  force  la  raison  a  sUficliner, 
et  il  les  cblouit  aidant  qu'il  les  eclaire.  —  M.  R.F.MUSAT. 

The  Novum  Organum  is  a  string  of  aphorisms,  a  collection  as  it  were 
of  scientific  decrees,  from  an  oracle  who  foresees  the  future  and  reveals 
the  truth.     It  is  intuition,  not  reasoning.  —  M.  Taine. 

There  is  something  about  him  not  fully  understood  or  discerned, 
which,  in  spite  of  all  curtailments  of  his  claims  in  regard  to  one  special 
kind  of  eminence  or  another,  still  leaves  the  sense  of  his  eminence  as 
strong  as  ever.  —  Prof.  Craik. 

No  two  critics  agree  as  to  the  nature  or  cause  of  the  profound  impres- 
sion he  has  made  on  mankind.  We  are  certain  only  that  he  is  a  re- 
splendent orb,  in  the  light  of  which,  across  an  interval  of  three  centuries, 
every  man  still  casts  a  shadow. 


BACON  vs.   SHAKSPERE. 


FOR   THE   PLAINTIFF. 


I. 

THE  AUTHOR  OF  THE  "  SHAKE-SPEARE  "  PLAYS. 

IT  is  conceded  by  all  that  the  author  of  the  "  Shake- 
speare " 1  Plays  was  the  greatest  genius  of  his 
age,  perhaps  of  any  age,  and,  with  nearly  equal 
unanimity,  that  he  was  a  man  of  broad  and  varied 
scholarship. 

I.  He  was  a  linguist,  many  of  the  Plays  being 
based  on  Latin,  Greek,  Spanish,  and  Italian  produc- 
tions, some  of  which  had  not  then  been  translated 
into  English.  Latin  and  French  were  especially  very 
familiar  to  him.  It  is  thus  apparent  that  not  less 
than  five  foreign  languages,  living  and  dead,  were 
included  in  his  repertory. 

1  Wherever  personal  reference  is  made  in  this  work  to  William 
Shakspere  of  Stratford,  the  name  is  so  spelled,  William  Shakspere ; 
but  wherever  the  reference  is  to  the  author  of  the  plays,  as  such,  we 
treat  the  name  as  a  pseudonym,  spelling  it  as  it  was  printed  on  many 
of  the  title-pages  of  the  early  quartos,  William  Shake-speare.  In 
all  cases  of  quotation,  however,  we  follow  the  originals. 


2  Bacon  vs.  Shakspere. 

Latin.  —  The  '  Comedy  of  Errors'  was  founded  upon  the 
Menaechmi  of  Plautus,  a  comic  poet  who  wrote  about  200  B.  c. 
The  first  translation  of  the  Latin  work  into  English,  so  far  as 
known,  was  made  in  1595,  subsequently  to  the  appearance  of 
the  "  Shake-speare  "  play,  and  without  any  resemblance  to  it 
"  in  any  peculiarity  of  language,  of  names,  or  of  any  other 
matter,  however  slight."  —  Verplanck. 

"  His  frequent  use  of  Latin  derivatives  in  their  radical  sense 
shows  a  somewhat  thoughtful  and  observant  study  of  that  lan- 
guage."—  Richard  Grant  White's  Memoirs  of  William  Shake- 
speare, p.  xvi. 

"  He  showed  his  fundamental  knowledge  of  that  language, 
by  using  its  words  in  their  genuine,  original  meaning,  which 
they  have  lost  with  their  adoption  into  English."  —  Gervinus* 
Shakespeare  Commentaries,1  p.  26. 

"  After  the  proofs  I  have  given,  it  will  hardly,  I  think,  be 
denied  that  he  was  quite  capable  of  studying  the  celebrated 
story  [of  '  Venus  and  Adonis '  ]  in  the  original  sources,  and 
that  he  certainly  did  so  in  relation  to  Ovid's  version  of  it."  — 
Prof.  T.  S.  Baynes  2  in  Eraser's  Mag.  1880. 

li  He  knew  Latin,  we  need  not  doubt,  as  well  as  any  other  man 
of  his  time."  —  Stapfer's  Shakespeare  and  Classical  Antiquity, 
p.  100. 

"He  makes  some  of  his  characters  [in  'Love's  Labor's 
Lost ']  use  false  Latin,  that  he  may  show  his  learning  in  cor- 
recting it."  —  T.  W.  White's  '  Our  English  Homer,"1  p.  195. 

Greek. — '  Timon  of  Athens 'was  drawn  partly  from  Plu- 
tarch and  partly  from  Lucian,  the  latter  author  not  having  been 
translated  into  English  earlier  than  1638  (White),  fifteen  years 
after  the  publication  of  the  play. 

Helena's  pathetic  lament  over  a  lost  friendship  in  '  A  Mid- 
summer Night's  Dream'  (III.  2)  had  its  prototype  in  a  Greek 
poem  by  St.  Gregory  of  Nazianzus,  published  at  Venice  in  1504. 
—  Gibbon's  Decline  and  Fall,  chap,  xxvii. 

"  The  likeness  between  the  Clytemnestra  of  Aeschylus  and  the 

1  "A  German  professor,  Gervinus,  is  the  author  of  the  greatest 
book  ever  written  on  Shakespeare."  —Staffer. 

2  Editor  Encyclopedia  Britannica,  ninth  edition. 


Authors  Attainments.  3 

Lady  Macbeth  is  too  remarkable  to  escape  notice  ;  that  be- 
tween the  two  poets  in  their  choice  of  epithets  is  as  great, 
though  more  difficult  of  proof.  Yet  I  think  an  attentive  student 
of  Shakespeare  cannot  fail  to  be  reminded  of  something  familiar 
to  him  in  such  phrases  as  '  flame-eyed  fire,'  '  flax-winged  ships,' 
and  'star-neighboring  peaks.' 

"  In  the  '  Electra  '  of  Sophocles,  which  is  almost  identical  in 
its  leading  motive  with  '  Hamlet,'  the  Chorus  consoles  Electra 
for  the  supposed  death  of  Orestes  in  the  same  commonplace 
way  which  Hamlet's  uncle  tries  with  him.  Shakespeare  expa- 
tiates somewhat  more  largely,  but  the  sentiment  in  both  cases 
is  almost  verbally  identical."1  —  Lowell's  Among  My  Books, 
p.  191. 

A  passage  in  '  Troilus  and  Cressida '  is  "  inexplicable  except 
on  the  supposition  that  Shakespeare  was  acquainted  with  what 
Plato  wrote."  —  Richard  Grant  White. 

Among  the  presages  of  death,  given  by  a  Greek  writer,  400 
B.  C,  and  repeated  in  'Henry  V.,"  "  Shake-speare  "  mentions 
one  which  is  peculiar  to  the  people  of  Greece,  and  which  no 
translation  of  the  original  work,  even  into  Latin,  had  brought 
out. 

Italian.  —  An  Italian  novel,  written  by  Giraldi  Cinthio  and 
first  printed  in  1565,  furnished  the  incidents  for  the   story  of 

1  Gibbon  and  Lowell  were  unfortunately  restrained  by  certain  sup- 
posed exigencies  from  acknowledging  that  the  author  of  the  plays 
must  have  been  familiar  with  the  Greek  language.  Mr.  Lowell,  how- 
ever, feels  compelled  to  ask,  rather  helplessly,  not  to  say  absurdly,  — 

"  Is  it  incredible  that  he  may  have  laid  hold  of  an  edition  of  the 
Greek  tragedies,  Graece  et  Latine,  and  then,  with  such  poor  wits  as 
he  was  master  of,  contrived  to  worry  some  considerable  meaning  out 
of  them  ? " 

This  state  of  mind  on  the  part  of  so  distinguished  a  critic  illustrates 
very  forcibly  one  of  the  chief  causes  of  the  poverty  of  Shake-spearean 
criticism.  Mr.  Steevens,  for  instance,  suffered  himself  to  be  driven 
to  the  preposterous  conclusion  that  the  play  of  '  Troilus  and  Cres- 
sida '  is  not  wholly  "  Shake-speare  "  's,  because  of  certain  Grecisms 
in  it,  of  which,  he  assumed,  "  Shake-speare "  could  have  had  no 
knowledge. 


4  Bacon  vs.  Shakspere. 

'  Othello.'  The  author  of  the  play  "  read  it  probably  in  the 
original,  for  no  English  translation  of  his  time  is  known."  — 
Gervinus1  Shak.  Com.  p.  505. 

"He  was,  without  doubt,  quite  able  to  read  Italian."  — 
Richard  Grant  White. 

"  When  Iago,  distilling  his  poison  into  Othello's  ears,  utters 
the  oft  quoted  lines :  — 

'Who  steals  my  purse,  steals  trash  ;  't  is  something,  nothing; 
'T  was  mine,  't  is  his,  and  has  been  slave  to  thousands; 
But  he  that  filches  from  me  my  good  name 
Robs  me  of  that  which  not  enriches  him, 
And  makes  me  poor  indeed,'  — 

he  but  repeats  with  little  variation  a  stanza  of  Berni's  '  Orlando 
Innamorato,'  of  which  poem,  to  this  day,  there  is  no  English 
version."  —  Ibid.  :  Memoirs  of  William  Shakespeare,  XXIII. 

"  The  great  majority  of  the  dramatis  perso?ia  in  his  comedies, 
as  well  as  in  some  of  the  tragedies,  have  Italian  names,  and 
many  of  them  are  as  Italian  in  nature  as  in  name.  The  moon- 
light scene  in  'The  Merchant  of  Venice'  is  southern  in  every 
detail  and  incident.  '  Romeo  and  Juliet '  is  Italian  throughout, 
alike  in  coloring,  incident,  and  passion.  In  the  person  of 
Hamlet,  the  author  appears  even  as  a  critic  of  Italian  style."  — 
Prof.  Baynes  i?i  Encyc.  Brit.  XXI.  758. 

French.  —  One  entire  scene  and  parts  of  others  in  '  Henry 
V.'  are  in  French. 

Plowden's  French  '  Commentaries,'  containing  the  celebrated 
case  of  Hales  vs.  Petit,  which  was  satirized  by  the  grave- 
diggers  in  '  Hamlet,'  were  translated  into  English  for  the  first 
time  more  than  half  a  century  after  the  play  was  written. 

"  The  author  shows  his  knowledge  of  even  the  most  delicate 
peculiarities  of  the  French  tongue."  —  Richard  Grant  White's 
Shakespeare's  Works,  II.  206. 

"  A  brilliant  proof  that  the  author  of  the  plays  was  familiar 
with  the  French  language  is  the  masterly  way  in  which  he 
makes  Dr.  Caius,  in  'The  Merry  Wives  of  Windsor,'  murder 
the  Queen's  English.  Those  who  have  ever  heard  a  French- 
man utter  this  jargon  will  not  hesitate  to  admit  that  the  poet  has 


Author s  Attainments.  5 

grasped  and  reproduced  it  with  inimitable  truth  and  in  the  wit- 
tiest manner."  —  Elze' 's  William  Shakespeare,  p.  382. 

"  The  evidence  of  his  knowledge  of  French  is  more  abundant 
and  decisive,  so  much  so  as  hardly  to  need  express  illustra- 
tion."—  Prof.  Baynes  in  Encyc.  Brit.  art.  "Shakespeare." 

Spanish.  —  The  poet  drew  some  of  his  materials  for  the 
'  Two  Gentlemen  of  Verona '  from  the  Spanish  romance  of 
Montemayor,  entitled  the  '  Diana,'  which  was  translated  into 
English  in  1582,  the  translation,  however,  not  being  printed  till 
1598.  "The  resemblances  are  too  minute  to  be  accidental." 
[Halliwell-Phillipps.] 

"  Could  there  be  anything  more  to  the  point  than  the  descrip- 
tion he  gives  in  '  Love's  Labor  's  Lost '  of  the  Spanish  lan- 
guage? Can  one  who  describes  the  character  of  a  language 
with  such  clearness  and  insight  be  unacquainted  with  it?"  — 
Elze's  Shakespeare,  p.  385. 

Gervinus  calls  attention  to  two  of  the  Comedies  in  which 
Latin,  French,  Spanish,  and  Italian  words  and  sentences 
abound,  and  ventures  to  suggest  a  desire,  on  the  part  of  the 
author,  to  exhibit  in  them  his  knowledge  of  foreign  languages. 

II.  He  had  intimate  acquaintance  with  ancient  and 
modern  literature,  numerous  authors,  from  the  age  of 
Homer  down  to  his  own,  being  drawn  upon  for  illus- 
tration and  imagery  in  the  composition  of  these 
works. 

"  The  writer  was  a  classical  scholar.  Rowe  found  traces  in 
him  of  the  '  Electra  '  of  Sophocles ;  Colman,  of  Ovid  ;  Pope,  of 
Dares  Phrygius  and  other  Greek  authors;  Farmer,  of  Horace 
and  Virgil;  Malone,  of  Lucretius,  Statius.  Catullus,  Seneca, 
Sophocles,  and  Euripides;  Steevens,  of  Plautus  ;  Knight,  of  the 
'Antigone'  of  Sophocles;  White,  of  the  'Alcestis1  of  Euripi- 
des." —  Nathaniel  Holmes'1  Authorship  of  Shakespeare,  p.  57. 

"  The  early  plays  exhibit  the  poet  not  far  removed  from 
school  and  its  pursuits ;  in  none  of  his  later  dramas  does  he 
plunge  so  deeply  into  the  remembrances  of  antiquity,  his  head 


6  Bacon  vs.  Shakspere. 

overflowing  with  its  images,  legends,  and  characters.  The 
'  Taming  of  the  Shrew,'  especially,  may  be  compared  with  the 
'  First  Part  of  Henry  VI.1  '  in  the  manifold  ostentation  of  book- 
learning.''  " —  Gervinus'  Shak.  Com.  p.  145. 

"A  mind  fresh  from  academic  studies."  —  R.  G.  White's 
Essay  on  Shakespeare 's  Genius,  p.  cexxiv. 

"  In  that  play,  so  marvellously  full  of  thought,  '  Troilus  and 
Cressida,'  Ulysses  rises  to  the  full  height  of  our  idea  of  the 
wandering  Ithacan.  Whence  came  this  Ulysses  ?  Not  from 
Homer's  brain ;  for,  although  Homer  tells  us  that  the  King  of 
Ithaca  was  'divine,'  and  '  spear-renowned,'  and  '  well  skilled  in 
various  enterprise  and  counsel,'  the  deeds  and  words  of  the 
hero,  as  represented  by  the  Greek  poet,  hardly  justify  these 
epithets.  Here  we  see  that  Shakespeare  was  even  wiser  than  the 
Homeric  ideal  of  human  wisdom.  He  made  our  Ulysses.'1 —  Ibid. 

"  The  early  plays  mark  the  productions  of  a  fresh  collegian. 
His  familiar  acquaintance  with  college  terms  and  usages  makes 
for  the  conclusion  that  he  enjoyed  the  privileges  of  a  university 
education."  —  Charles  and  Mary  Cow  den  Clarke. 

''  The  very  earliest  writings  of  Shakespeare  are  imbued  with 
a  spirit  of  classical  antiquity."  —  Charles  Knight. 

"  His  habits  had  been  scholastic  and  those  of  a  student.  A 
young  author's  first  work  almost  always  bespeaks  his  recent 
pursuits."  —  Coleridge's  lectures  on  Shakespeare,  p.  287. 

"  The  immaturity  [of  his  mind  in  the  early  plays]  is  seen  in 
the  extent  to  which  the  smell  of  the  lamp  mingles  with  the 
freshness  and  vigor  of  poetic  feeling.  The  wide  circle  of 
references  to  Greek  fable  and  Roman  story  suggests  that  the 
writer  had  come  recently  from  his  books,  and  was  not  unwilling 
to  display  his  acquaintance  with  them."  —  Prof.  Baynes  in 
Eraser's  Mag.  1880. 

"  '  Love's  Labor  's  Lost,'  one  of  the  earliest  of  the  plays,  is  so 
learned,  so  academic,  so  scholastic  in  expression  and  allusion, 
that  it  is  unfit  for  popular  representation." —  O'Connor's  Ham- 
let's Note-Book. 

Stapfer,1  a  distinguished  French  critic,  intimates  that  in  his 

1  It  may  be  well  to  remark  that  Stapfer,  Baynes,  and  White  are 
unfriendly  witnesses,  and  that  Gervinus  and  Verplanck  wrote  before 


Authors  Attainments.  7 

judgment  some  of  the  plays  are  "  over-cumbered  with  learning, 
not  to  say  pedantic" 

III.  He  was  a  jurist,  and  his  fondness  for  legal 
phrases  is  remarkable. 

He  had  "  a  deep  technical  knowledge  of  the  law,"  and  an 
easy  familiarity  with  "  some  of  the  most  abstruse  proceedings 
in  English  jurisprudence."  —  Lord  Chief  Justice  Campbell. 

"  Whenever  he  indulges  this  propensity,  he  uniformly  lays 
down  good  law."  —  Ibid. 

One  of  the  sonnets  [46]  is  so  intensely  technical  in  its  phrase- 
ology that  "  without  a  considerable  knowledge  of  English  foren- 
sic procedure,  it  cannot  be  fully  understood."  1 —  Ibid. 

"In  an  age  when  it  was  the  common  practice  for  young  law- 
yers to  write  plays,  one  playwright  left  upon  his  works  a  stronger, 
sharper  legal  stamp  than  appears  upon  those  of  any  of  his  con- 
temporaries ;  and  the  characters  of  this  stamp  are  those  of  the 

this  controversy  began.  Judge  Holmes  is  our  senior  counsel,  but  we 
claim  the  right  at  this  hearing  to  put  him  also  on  the  witness  stand. 
His  work  on  the  '  Authorship  of  Shakespeare '  is  as  temperate  in  its 
judgments  as  it  is  philosophical  and  profound  in  its  general  treatment 
of  the  subject. 

1  "  Mine  eye  and  heart  are  at  a  mortal  war, 
How  to  divide  the  conquest  of  thy  sight ; 
Mine  eye  my  heart  thy  picture's  sight  would  bar, 
My  heart  mine  eye  the  freedom  of  that  right. 
My  heart  doth  plead  that  thou  in  him  dost  lie,  — 
A  closet  never  pierced  with  crystal  eyes,  — 
But  the  defendant  doth  that  plea  deny, 
And  says  in  him  thy  fair  appearance  1:3S. 
To  'cide  this  title  is  impanneled 
A  quest  of  thoughts,  all  tenants  to  the  heart ; 
And  by  their  verdict  is  determined 
The  clear  eye's  moiety  and  the  dear  heart's  part : 
As  thus,  —  mine  eye's  due  is  thy  outward  part, 
And  my  heart's  right  thy  inward  love  of  heart." 

Sonnet  XL VI. 


8  Bacon  vs.  Shakspere. 

complicated  law  of  real  property."  —  Richard  Grant  White's 
Memoirs  of  William  Shakespeare,  p.  xlvii. 

"  His  knowledge  of  legal  terms  is  not  merely  such  as  might 
be  acquired  by  the  casual  observation  of  even  his  all-compre- 
hending mind;  it  has  the  appearance  of  technical  skill."  — 
Edmund  M alone. 

"The  marvellous  intimacy  which  he  displays  with  legal  terms, 
his  frequent  adoption  of  them  in  illustration,  and  his  curiously 
technical  knowledge  of  their  form  and  force."  —  Charles  and 
Mary  Cow  den  Clarke. 

"In  one  scene  the  lover,  wishing  a  kiss,  prays  for  a  grant  of 
pasture  on  his  mistress'  lips.  This  suggests  the  law  of  pasture ; 
and  she  replies  that  her  lips  are  "no  common."  This  again 
suggests  the  distinction  between  tenancy  in  common  and  ten- 
ancy in  severalty,  and  she  adds,  "though  several  they  be.'  "  — 
Davis"1  Law  in  Shakespeare. 

"  Among  these  [legal  terms],  there  are  some  which  few  but  a 
lawyer  would,  and  some  even  which  none  but  a  lawyer  could, 
have  written."  —  Franklin  Fiske  Heard's  Shakespeare  as  a 
Lawyer. 

"In  the  '  Second  Part  of  Henry  IV.  [V.  5],  Pistol  uses  the 
term,  absque  hoc,  which  is  technical  in  the  last  degree.  This 
was  a  species  of  traverse,  used  by  special  pleaders  when  the 
record  was  in  Latin,  known  by  the  denomination  of  a  special 
traverse.  The  subtlety  of  its  texture,  and  the  total  dearth  of  ex- 
planation in  all  the  reports  and  treatises  extant  in  the  time  of 
Shakespeare  with  respect  to  its  principle,  seem  to  justify  the 
conclusion  that  he  must  have  obtained  a  knowledge  of  it  from 
actual  practice?-  —  Ibid. 

IV.    He  was  a  philosopher. 

"  In  the  constructing  of  Shakespeare's  Dramas  there  is  an 
understanding  manifested,  equal  to  that  in  Bacon's  Novum 
Organumy  —  Carlyle. 

"He  is  inconceivably  wise;  the  others,  conceivably."  — 
Emerson. 

1  Italics  our  own. 


Author s  Attainments.  g 

"  From  his  works  may  be  collected  a  system  of  civil  and 
economical  prudence."  —  Dr.  "Johnson. 

"  He  was  not  only  a  great  poet,  but  a  great  philosopher."  — 
Coleridge. 

"  In  some  of  his  [Falstaff's]  reflections  we  have  a  clear, 
though  brief,  view  of  the  profound  philosopher  underlying  the 
profligate  humorist  and  makesport :  for  he  there  discovers  a 
breadth  and  sharpness  of  observation  and  a  depth  of  practical 
sagacity  such  as  might  have  placed  him  in  the  front  rank  of 
statesmen  and  sages."  —  Hudson's  Shakespeare.  His  Art  and 
Life,  II.  94. 

Thus  was  the  author's  mind  not  only  a  fountain  of 
inspiration  from  its  own  illimitable  depths,  but  en- 
riched in  large  measure  with  the  stores  of  knowledge 
which  the  world  had  then  accumulated. 

"  There  is  the  clearest  evidence  that  his  mind  was  richly 
stored  with  knowledge  of  all  kinds."  —  Prof.  Baynes  in  Eraser's 
Mag.,  1880. 

"  The  range  and  accuracy  of  his  knowledge  were  beyond 
precedent  or  later  parallel."  —  Lowell's  Among  My  Books, 
p.  167. 

"An  amazing  genius,  which  could  pervade  all  nature  at  a 
glance,  and  to  whom  nothing  within  the  limits  of  the  universe 
appeared  to  be  unknown." —  Whalley. 

"  Shakespeare  had  in  his  time  few  equals  in  the  range  of  his 
manifold  knowledge."  —  Gcrvinus"1  Commentaries,  p.  25. 

"  It  is  childish  to  discuss  the  amount  of  learning  possessed  by 
an  author  who  has  taught  the  whole  world."  —  Staffer's  Shake- 
speare and  Classical  Antiquity,  p.  106. 

"  The  great  master  who  knew  everything."  —  Charles  Dickens. 

"  Let  it  be  accepted  as  a  truth  past  all  debate,  that  among 
the  great  ones  of  the  earth  Shakespeare  stands  alone,  in  unap- 
proachable majesty.  What  was  the  secret  of  his  power ;  from 
whence  derived  this  marvellous  insight  into  human  nature  un- 
der all  circumstances,  ages,  and  climes,  this  accurate  knowledge 
of  sciences,  arts,  governments,  morals,   manners,   philosophies, 


IO 


Bacon  vs.  Shakspere. 


and  codes,  this  exquisite  command  of  language,  never  wielded 
with  such  skill  before  or  since,  by  which  each  character,  event, 
or  thought  is  drawn  in  lines  of  living  light  ?  This,  the  greatest 
of  all  human  mysteries  which  we  have  received  from  our  fathers, 
we  must  transmit,  deepened  and  heightened  rather  than  lessened 
by  our  labors,  to  our  children."  —  Allibone's  Dictionary  of 
Authors,  II.  2050. 

Note.  —  The  authorities  cited  in  this  chapter  give  us  the  best  and 
ripest  results  of  modern  scholarship.  Nearly  all  of  them  are  of  the 
latter  half  of  the  current  century. 


II. 

WILLIAM   SHAKSPERE. 

I.  THE  family  of  William  Shakspere,  the  actor, 
was  grossly  illiterate.  His  father  and  mother  made 
their  signatures  with  a  cross.  Of  his  two  children, 
Judith,  at  the  age  of  twenty-seven,  was  also  unable  to 
write  her  name ;  Susanna  could  not  read  her  hus- 
band's manuscript,  nor  even  identify  it  by  sight 
among  others.  The  little  we  know  of  his  own  youth 
and  early  manhood  affords  presumptive  proof  of  the 
strongest  kind  that  he  was  uneducated. 

"  Nature  only  helped  him."  —  Leonard  Digges,  1640. 
"  His  learning  was  very  little."  —  Thomas  Fuller's  Worthies, 
1662. 

"Old  Mother-wit  and  Nature  gave 
Shakespeare  and  Fletcher  all  they  have." 

Sir  John  Denham,  1668. 

"  Shakespeare  said  all  that  Nature  could  impart."  —  Chet- 
wood,  1684. 

"  Never  any  scholar,  as  our  Shakespeare,  if  alive,  would  con- 
fess himself." —  Winstanley,  1684. 

"  He  was  as  much  a  stranger  to  French  as  Latin."  —  Gerard 
Langbaine,  1691. 

"  The  clerk  that  showed  me  this  church  is  above  eighty  years 
old.  He  says  that  this  Shakespeare  was  formerly  bound  in 
this  town  to  a  butcher,  but  that  he  ran  away  from  his  master  to 
London."  —  Letter  from  Dowdall,  visiting  Stratford,  1693. 

"In  him  we  find  all  arts  and  sciences,  all  moral  and  natural 


12  Bacoji  vs.  Shakspere. 

philosophy,  without  knowing  that  he  ever  studied  them."  — 
Dryden. 

"  Without  any  instruction  either  from  the  world  or  from 
books."  —  Hume's  History  of  England,  III.  110. 

"  The  constant  criticism  which  his  contemporaries,  from 
Greene  to  Ben  Jonson,  passed  on  him  was  that  he  was  ignorant 
of  language  and  no  scholar."  —  Richard  Simpson's  School  of 
Shakspere,  II.  398. 

"Where  this  wonderful  creator  gained  the  knowledge  of 
human  nature  and  experience  of  human  motives  which  have 
presented  him  to  posterity  rather  as  something  divine  than  a 
mere  mortal  artist,  it  is  impossible  to  learn."  —  Prof  Shaw's 
English  Literature,  p.  121. 

"  And  thou,  who  did'st  the  stars  and  sunbeams  know, 
Self-schooFd,  self-scann'd,  self-honor'd,  self-secure, 
Didst  stand  on  earth  unguess'd  at." 

Matthew  Arnold's  Sonnet  to  Shakespeare. 

"  The  only  author  that  gives  ground  for  a  very  new  opinion, 
that  the  philosopher  and  even  the  man  of  the  world  may  be 
born,  as  well  as  the  poet."  —  Alexander  Pope. 

"The  untaught  son  of  a  Stratford  yeoman."1  —  Richard 
Grant   White. 

II.  The  Shakspere  family,  like  many  others  of 
that  period,  had  no  settled  or  uniform  method  of 
spelling  their  name.2  More  than  thirty  different 
forms  have  been  found  among  their  papers,  on  their 

1  No  reference  to  Shakspere  personally,  made  in  his  lifetime  or 
within  a  hundred  years  after  his  death,  in  contradiction  of  the  above, 
can  be  produced.  The  only  possible  exception  is  Jonson's  well- 
known  jest  relating  to  his  "  small  Latin  and  less  Greek,"  for  which 
see  p.  102. 

2  English  orthography  was  then  in  a  plastic  state,  as  orthography 
always  is  before  the  formation  of  a  national  literature.  Bacon  once 
wrote  his  own  name  Bakon,  with  the  evident  intention,  entirely  charac- 
teristic of  him,  to  simplify  our  alphabet  by  substituting  for  the  hard 
sound  of  c  the  letter  k,  after  the  manner  of  the  Greek  and  primitive 
Roman  languages. 


William  Shakspere.  13 

tombstones,  and  in  contemporaneous  public  records. 
How  William  wrote  it,  it  is  impossible  to  say;  ac- 
cording to  Dr.  Johnson,  each  time  differently  in  the 
three  signatures  to  his  will.1 

In  the  registry  of  his  baptism  and  of  his  burial,  it 
is  Shakspere ;  in  his  marriage  bond,  Shagspere ; 
under  the  bust  at  Stratford,  Shakspeare.  Among 
other  forms  discovered  in  the  records  of  the  family 
are  the  following :  Shaxpur,  Chacksper,  Sehakespeire, 
Chacsper,  Shexpere,  Shaekspire,  Sliakispere,  Shaxberd, 
Shakaspeare,  Shaykspere,  and  Schakespayr?  Patro- 
nymics often  varied  at  that  time,  as  they  do  now,  in 
different  families  and  in  different  sections  of  the 
country;  but  here  the  variations  in  the  same  house- 
hold were  unusually  numerous,  and  to  all  appear- 
ances at  hap-hazard. 

It  is  a  singular  circumstance,  nevertheless,  that  in 
all  the  forms  tabulated  by  Wise,  nineteen  hundred 
and  six  in  number,  the  one  printed  on  the  title-pages 
of  the  plays  and  poems,  SHAKESPEARE,  does  not 
appear.  It  is  unique.  So  far  as  we  know,  no  person 
in  Stratford  or  in  any  other  part  of  the  kingdom,  pre- 
viously to  the  publication  of  the  '  Venus  and  Adonis,' 
wrote  it  in  that  way.  Literature  had  an  absolute 
monopoly  of  it.3 

1  "  Whether  it  be  a  privilege  of  genius  never  to  write  one's  name 
alike  twice,  even  on  the  same  day,  such  was  certainly  the  fact  with 
Shakespeare." — Mellen  Chamberlain,  Librarian  Boston  Pub.  Lib.,  1889. 

2  In  Stratford  the  name  was  undoubtedly  pronounced,  as  it  was 
often  written,  Shaxpere.  It  occurs  in  this  form  one  hundred  and  four 
times  in  the  town  records.  The  last  syllable,  also  often  written  pur, 
was  uttered  like  the  first,  with  a  short  vowel  sound. 

3  It  is  significant  that  in  many  of  the  quartos  a  hyphen  is  inserted 
between  the  syllables  (Shake-speare),  perhaps  (as  it  has  been  sug- 
gested) to  give  the  name  a  fanciful  turn,  and  distinguish  it  in  another 


14  Bacon  vs.  Shakspere. 

III.  Shakspere's  handwriting,  of  which  we  have 
five  specimens  in  his  signatures  to  legal  documents, 
was  not  only  almost  illegible,  but  singularly  unculti- 
vated and  grotesque,  wholly  at  variance  with  the 
description  given  of  the  manuscripts  of  the  plays  in 
the  preface  to  the  folio  edition  of  1623.  The  edi- 
torial encomium  was  in  these  words  :  — 

"His  mind  and  hand  went  together;  and  what  he 
thought,  he  uttered  with  that  easiness,  that  we  have 
scarce  received  from  him  a  blot  in  his  papers." 
[Italics  our  own.] 

In  this  connection  we  reproduce  the  five  auto- 
graphs of  Shakspere,  the  only  acknowledged  speci- 
mens of  his  penmanship  in  existence,  in  facsimile} 

IV.  No  letter  written  by  him  has  come  down  to  us, 
and  but  one  (soliciting  a  loan  of  money)  addressed 
to  him.  An  inspection  of  his  autograph  is  alone 
sufficient  to  explain  the  paucity  of  his  correspond- 
ence, if  not  its  absolute  non-existence. 

slight  respect  from  that  of  the  actor.  The  true  explanation,  however, 
may  lie  deeper  than  this.  In  Grecian  mythology,  Pallas  Athene  (the 
Roman  Minerva)  was  the  goddess  of  wisdom,  philosophy,  poetry,  and 
the  fine  arts.  Her  original  name  was  simply  Pallas,  a  word  derived 
from  TrdWfiv,  signifying  "  to  brandish  or  shake."  She  was  generally 
represented  with  a  spear.  Athens,  the  home  of  the  drama,  was  under 
the  protection  of  this  Spear-shaker. 

In  our  age  such  a  signature  would  be  understood  at  once  as  a 
pseudonym. 

1  The  Public  Library  of  the  City  of  Boston  contains  a  volume  of 
North's  Plutarch  of  1603,  in  which  is  inscribed  on  a  fly-leaf  the  name 
of  "  Wilm.  Shakspeare."  Concerning  this  signature  the  following 
statement  is  made  in  one  of  the  official  bulletins  of  the  association  : 

"  The  field  of  comparison  of  the  library  signature  with  the  known 
originals  is  narrow,  being  limited  to  those  written  between  1613  and 
1616,  all  of  which  show  such  a  lack  of  facility  in  handwriting  as  would 
almost  preclude  the  possibility  of  Shakespeare's  having  written  the 
dramas  attributed  to  him."  —  Mellen  Chamberlain,  Librarian,  1S89. 


William  Shakspere.  15 

V.  In  the  dedication  of  the  '  Venus  and  Adonis,' 
published  in  1593,  Shakespeare  calls  that  poem  the 
"first  heir"  of  his  invention.  This  makes  it  ante- 
date the  Plays.  Accordingly  Richard  Grant  White 
sets  it  down  as  written  in  1584-5,  before  Shakespeare 
left  Stratford.  Gervinus,  also,  assigns  it  to  the  same 
early  date. 

The  '  Venus  and  Adonis '  is  a  product  of  the  high- 
est culture.  It  is  prefixed  with  a  Latin  quotation 
from  Ovid,1  and  is  written  throughout  in  the  purest, 
most  elegant  and  scholarly  English  of  that  day. 
Hazlitt  compares  it  to  an  ice-house,  "  almost  as  hard, 
as  glittering,  and  as  cold."  Is  it  possible  that  in  a 
town  where  six  only  of  nineteen  aldermen  and  bur- 
gesses could  write  their  names,  where  the  habits  ot 
the  people  were  so  inconceivably  filthy  that  John 

1  "  Taken  from  a  poem  of  which  there  existed  at  the  time  no  Eng- 
lish version."  —  Prof.  Bayncs  in  Preiser's  Mag.,  1880. 

"It  is  hardly  possible  that  the  Amores  of  Ovid,  whence  he  derived 
his  earliest  motto,  could  have  been  one  of  his  schoolbooks."  —  Halli- 
well-Phillipps. 


i6  Bacon  vs.  Shakspere. 

Shakspere,  father  of  William,  was  publicly  prose- 
cuted on  two  occasions  for  defiling  the  street  in  front 
of  his  house,  where  the  common  speech  was  a  patois 
rude  to  the  verge  of  barbarism,  and  where,  probably, 
outside  of  the  school  and  church,  not  a  half-dozen 
books,  as  White  admits,  were  to  be  found  among  the 
whole  population,  —  is  it  possible  that  in  such  a  town 
a  lad  of  twenty  composed  this  beautiful  epic? 

"  The  '  Venus  and  Adonis  '  and  the  '  Lucrece  '  bear  palpable 
tokens  of  college  elegance  and  predilection,  both  in  story  and 
in  treatment.  The  air  of  niceness  and  stiffness,  peculiar  to  the 
schools,  invests  these  efforts  of  the  youthful  genius  with  almost 
unmistakable  signs  of  having  been  written  by  a  schoolman."  — 
Charles  and  Mary  Cowden  Clarke. 

"  It  is  extremely  improbable  that  a  poem  so  highly  finished 
and  so  completely  devoid  of  patois  as  the  '  Venus  and  Adonis  ' 
could  have  been  produced  under  the  circumstances  of  his  then 
domestic  surroundings."  —  Hallhvell-Phillipps. 

"  There  was  a  grammar  school  in  Stratford  ;  but  the  idea  of 
anybody  being  taught  English  grammar  in  an  English  grammar 
school  (let  alone  the  English  language)  in  those  days,  is  utterly 
inconceivable.  There  was  no  such  branch,  and  mighty  little  of 
anything  in  its  place  except  birchen  rods,  the  church  catechism, 
the  criss-cross  row,  and  a  few  superfluous  Latin  declensions  out 
of  Lily's  Accidence.  Nor  did  Shakespeare  hear  the  limpid, 
urban  English  of  the  poems  and  sonnets  at  home  or  in  Strat- 
ford streets.  .  .  .  Members  of  Parliament  could  not  understand 
each  other's  rustic  patois,  says  Mr.  White.  Even  the  soldiers 
in  Elizabeth's  army  could  not  comprehend  the  word  of  com- 
mand, unless  given  by  officers  of  their  own  county  or  shire 
town.  .  .  .  But  Shakespeare,  uncouth  rustic  as  he  was,  writes, 
as  the  '  first  heir '  of  his  invention,  the  most  elegant,  sumptuous, 
and  sensuous  verses  that  English  literature  possesses  to-day."  — 
Applet  on  Morgan.1 

1  It  is  well  known  that  Dr.  Morgan,  after  writing  '  The  Shake- 
spearean Myth,'  repudiated  the  conclusions  to  which  that  book  natur- 


4^<^^S 


fe 


3? 


&t$x 


Signatures  of  Aldermen  and  Burgesses  of  Stratford- 
upon-Avon,  1565. 


William  Shakspere.  19 

"  When  at  twenty-two  years  of  age  he  fled  from  Stratford  to 
London,  we  may  be  sure  that  he  had  never  seen  half-a-dozen 
books  other  than  his  horn-book,  his  Latin  Accidence,  and  a 
Bible.  Probably  there  were  not  half-a-dozen  others  in  all  Strat- 
ford." —  Richard  Grant  White. 

"  There  were  certainly  not  more  than  two  or  three  dozen 
books,  if  so  many,  in  the  whole  town."  *  —  Halliwell-Phillipps' 
Outlines. 

ally  leads.  He  is  now  the  orthodox  president  of  a  Shakespeare 
Society  in  New  York,  still  asserting,  however,  that  he  knows  of  no 
misstatement  of  fact  in  the  work  above  mentioned. 

Of  the  curriculum  of  the  Stratford  Grammar  School  in  the  sixteenth 
century  there  is  no  record.  We  can  judge  of  it  only  by  the  intellect- 
ual light  which  it  shed  upon  the  people  around  it,  most  of  whom,  as 
a  matter  of  fact,  could  not  read  or  write.  Speculations  drawn  from 
the  study  of  other  schools  of  the  same  grade  in  more  favored  parts  of 
the  kingdom,  such  as  Professor  Baynes  indulges  in,  are  of  little  value. 

1  Here  are  two  views  of  Stratford  :  — 

1.  The  ideal : 

"  As  his  [Shakspere's]  stout  gelding  mounted  Edgehill  [on  the  road 
to  London],  and  he  turned  in  his  saddle  to  take  a  parting  look  at  the 
familiar  landscape  he  was  leaving,  he  would  behold  what  Speed,  in 
his  enthusiasm,  calls  '  another  Eden.'  "  —  Prof.  Baynes  in  Encyc.  Brit., 
XXI.  739- 

2.  The  real : 

"  A  dirty  village.  .  .  .  The  streets  foul  with  offal,  mud,  muck- 
heaps,  and  reeking  stable  refuse."  —  Richard  Grant  White. 

"  Shakespeare's  home  was  in  the  vicinity  of  middens,  fetid  water- 
courses, mud  walls,  and  piggeries."  —  Halliwell-Phillipps. 

"  The  most  dirty,  unseemly,  ill-paved,  wretched-looking  town  in  all 
Britain."  —  David  Garrick,  1769. 

"  Stratford  was  a  perfect  hot-bed  of  religious  and  domestic  strife." 
—  C.  Elliot  Browne  in  Eraser's  Mag.,  1874. 

As  a  specimen  of  the  popular  style  in  which  the  life  of  Shakspere 
is  often  written,  we  append  the  following:  — 

"  Four  years  were  spent  by  Shakespeare  [after  leavirig  London]  in 
this  dignified  retirement,  and  the  history  of  literature  scarcely  pre- 
sents another  such  picture  of  calm  felicity  and  satisfied  ambition."  — 
Cleveland's  Compendium  of  English  Literature  for  the  Use  of  Schools 
and  Colleges,  p.  129. 


20  Bacon  vs.  Shakspere. 

VI.  It  is  believed  that  Shakspere  left  his  home  in 
Stratford  and  went  to  London  some  time  between 
1585  and  15S7.  He  was  then  twenty-one  to  twenty- 
three  years  of  age.  One  of  the  first  of  the  "  Shake- 
speare "  Plays  to  be  produced  on  the  stage  was 
'  Hamlet,'  and  the  date  not  later  than  1589.1  It  was 
founded  on  a  foreign  tragedy  of  which  no  translation 
then  existed  in  English.  As  first  presented,  it  was 
probably  in  an  imperfect  form,  having  been  subse- 
quently rewritten  and  enlarged  into  what  is  now,  per- 
haps, the  greatest  individual  work  of  genius  the 
human  mind  has  produced.2     To  assume  that  Shak- 

1  In  an  epistle  to  university  students,  published  in  Greene's  '  Mena- 
phon '  in  15S9,  Thomas  Xash  refers  to  'Hamlet  'as  a  play  then 
familiar  to  them.  That  this  early  '  Hamlet '  was  Shake-speare's  there 
can  be  no  reasonable  doubt,  for  we  can  trace  it  in  contemporary 
notices  all  along  from  the  time  of  its  production  in  Oxford  and  Cam- 
bridge to  its  appearance  in  the  Shake-speare  quarto  of  1603,  where 
we  read  on  the  title-page  that  the  play  had  often  been  acted  in  the 
presence  of  the  two  universities.  In  1591  Nash  alludes  to  the  famous 
soliloquy,  "  To  be  or  not  to  be,"  and  says  that  it  had  been  a  subject  of 
declamation  on  the  public  stage  for  five  years  preceding,  or  since 
1586.  Gabriel  Harvey,  writing  in  1598,  distinctly  ascribes  the 
'Venus  and  Adonis '  and  '  Lucrece '  and  the  play  of  '  Hamlet '  to  the 
same  person.  The  most  striking  feature  of  the  play  from  the  first  is 
the  part  taken  by  the  ghost ;  this  was  not  in  the  original  legend,  and 
is  so  extraordinary  that,  wherever  it  appears,  we  must  ascribe  it  to  the 
creative  genius  of  Shake-speare  himself.  The  play  was  therefore 
written  in  1585-6,  probably  before  William  Shakspere  left  Stratford. 
Bacon  was  then  about  twenty-five  years  of  age,  had  been  highly  edu- 
cated at  home  and  abroad,  and  was  a  briefless  barrister  at  Gray's  Inn. 

2  It  has  rivals  for  this  honor  :  — 

"Othello  is,  perhaps,  the  greatest  work  in  the  world."  —  Macaulay. 

"King  Lear,  the  most  wondrous  work  of  human  genius."  —  Rich- 
ard Grant  White. 

"  Macbeth,  perhaps  the  greatest  tragedy  of  ancient  or  modern 
times."  —  E.  P.  Whipple. 


THE 

Tragicall  Hiftorie  of 
HAMLET 

Prince  ofDenmarlttLj 

By  William  Shake-fpeare, 

As  it  hath  beene  diuerfe  times  a&edby  his  Highnefle  {b* 
uants  in  the  Cittie  of  London  :  asalfointhetwoV-. 
niuerfities  of  CambridgeandOxfordaaftd  dfe-where 


AX  Len3onpiIn{cdforNX.  andlohnTrundelL 

Title-page  of  First  Quarto  of  Hamlet. 


William  Shakspere.  23 

spere,  under  the  circumstances  in  which  he  was  then 
placed,  at  so  early  an  age,  fresh  from  a  country  town 
where  there  were  few  or  no  books,  and  from  a  family 
circle  whose  members  could  not  read  or  write,  was 
the  author  of  this  play,  would  seem  to  involve  a  mir- 
acle as  great  as  that  imputed  to  Joshua,  —  in  other 
words,  a  suspension  of  the  laws  of  cause  and  effect. 

VII.  His  residence  in  London  extended  over  a 
period  of  twenty- five  years,  during  which  time,  accord- 
ing to  popular  belief,  he  wrote  thirty-seven  dramas, 
one  hundred  and  fifty-four  sonnets,  and  two  or  three 
minor  poems,  besides  accumulating  a  fortune  the 
income  of  which  has  been  estimated  at  £400  (equiv- 
alent in  our  time  and  in  our  money  to  $24,000)  per 
annum.1  Such  an  instance  of  mental  fecundity  the 
world  has  never  seen,  before  or  since. 

At  the  same  time,  he  was  personally  unknown  in 
literary  and  political  circles. 

"  Of  his  eminent  countrymen,  Raleigh,  Sydney,  Spenser, 
Bacon,  Cecil,  Walsingham,  Coke,  Camden,  Hooker,  Drake, 
Hobbes,  Inigo  Jones,  Herbert  of  Cherbury,  Laud,  Pym,  Hamp- 
den, Selden,  Walton,  Wotton,  and  Donne  may  be  properly 
reckoned  as  his  contemporaries,  and  yet  there  is  no  evidence 
whatever  that  he  was  personally  known  to  either  of  these  men, 
or  to  any  others  of  less  note  among  the  statesmen,  scholars, 
soldiers,  and  artists  of  his  day,  excepting  a  few  of  his  fellow- 
craftsmen." —  Richard  Grant  White's  Memoirs  of  William 
Shakespeare,  p.  cxi. 

"  The  prose  works  published  in  the  latter  part  of  the  sixteenth 
and  the  early  part  of  the  seventeenth  centuries  contain  abundant 
notices  of  every  poet  of  distinction  save  Shakespeare,  whose 

1  "  The  relative  value  of  money  in  Shakespeare's  time  and  ours 
may  be  roughly  computed  at  one-twelfth  in  articles  of  trade,  and  one- 
twentieth  in  landed  or  house  property."  —  Halliwell-Phillipps. 


24  Bacon  vs.  Shakspere. 

name  and  works  are  rarely  and  only  slightly  mentioned.  .  .  . 
It  is  plain  that  the  bard  of  our  admiration  was  unknown  to  the 
men  of  that  age."  —  Ingleby. 

"  Since  the  constellation  of  great  men  who  appeared  in 
Greece  in  the  time  of  Pericles,  there  was  never  any  such  soci- 
ety ;  yet  their  genius  failed  them  to  find  out  the  best  head  in 
the  universe."  —  Emerson. 

Imagine  the  inhabitants  of  Lilliput  paying  no  at- 
tention to  Gulliver ! 

VIII.  The  end  of  his  career  was  as  remarkable  as 
its  beginning.  In  1610  or  thereabouts,  while  he  was 
still  comparatively  young  (at  the  age  of  forty-six), 
he  retired  from  London  and  passed  the  remainder  of 
his  days  among  his  old  neighbors  in  Stratford,1  loan- 
ing money  and  brewing  beer  for  sale.2  His  intellect- 
ual life  seems  to  have  terminated  as  abruptly  as  it 
had  begun.  The  most  careful  scrutiny  fails  to  show 
that  he  took  the  slightest  interest  in  the  fate  of  the 
plays  left  behind  him,  or  in  his  own  reputation  as  the 
author  of  them.  Some  of  these  productions  were 
still  in  manuscript,  unknown  even  to  the  stage,  and 
not  given  to  the  public,  either  for  fame  or  profit,  till 

1  "  Could  go  down  to  Stratford  and  live  there  for  years,  only  col- 
lecting his  dividends  from  the  Globe  Theatre,  lending  money  on 
mortgage,  and  leaning  over  his  gate  to  chat  and  bandy  quips  with 
neighbors."  — LowclFs  Among  My  Books,  p.  172. 

"  At  a  period  of  life  when  Chaucer  began  to  write  the  'Canterbury 
Tales,'  Shakspere,  according  to  his  biographers,  was  suddenly  and 
utterly  to  cease  to  write.    We  cannot  believe  it."  —  Charles  Knight. 

2  Evidently  a  wholesale  business,  for  a  bill  against  a  single  person 
for  malt  delivered  within  the  space  of  about  two  months,  called  for 
one  pound  nineteen  shillings  and  ten  pence,  an  amount  equivalent 
now  to  one  hundred  and  twenty  dollars.  This  bill,  including  an  item 
of  two  shillings,  money  loaned,  was  put  in  suit  in  1604,  the  year  in 
which  the  perfected  '  Hamlet '  was  published. 


<% 


Mark-signatures  of  William  Shakspere's  father  and  mother. 


ItsiAAS 


<^jct^/^cav9^ 


Mark-signature  of  William  Shakspere's  daughter  Judith,  at  the  age 
of  twenty-six. 


C 


Mark-signatures  of  Fulk  Sandells  and  John  Richardson,  subscribers  to 
William  Shakspere's  marriage-bond. 


Ignorance  is  the  curse  of  God ; 
Knowledge  the  wing  wherewith  we  fly  to  heaven. 

2  Henry  IV. 

The  common  curse  of  mankind,  folly  and  ignorance. 

Troilus  and  Cressida. 

There  is  no  darkness  but  ignorance. 

Twelfth  Night. 

0  thou  monster  ignorance,  how  defortned  dost  thou  look  ! 

Love's  Labor  's  Lost. 


William  Shakspere.  27 

thirteen  years  after  his  retirement.  Such  indifference 
to  the  children  of  his  brain,  and  so  complete  a  seclu- 
sion in  the  prime  of  his  manhood  from  the  refine- 
ments of  life,  present  to  us  a  picture,  not  only  painful 
to  contemplate,  but  one  that  stultifies  human  nature 
itself. 

IX.  He  was  exceedingly  litigious.  He  brought 
suits  against  several  persons  for  money  loaned,  in  one 
instance  for  a  sum  as  small  as  two  shillings,  and  in 
another,  failing  to  recover  from  the  debtor,  he  re- 
lentlessly pursued  the  debtor's  bondsman  for  a  year. 
He  was  also  plaintiff  in  an  action  against  the  town 
of  Stratford  in  the  matter  of  the  tithes.  There  is 
reason  to  believe  that  he  kept  an  attorney  con- 
stantly beside  him,  domiciled  in  his  house.1 

"  The  biographer  must  record  these  facts,  because  the  literary 
antiquaries  have  unearthed,  produced,  and  pitilessly  printed 
them  as  new  particulars  in  the  life  of  Shakespeare.  We  hunger 
and  we  receive  these  husks  ;  we  open  our  mouths  for  food,  and 
we  break  our  teeth  against  these  stones."  —  Richard  Grant 
White's  Memoirs  of  Shakespeare,  p.  88. 

X.  We  have  conclusive  evidence  that  he  was  am- 
bitious for  a  title,  and  that  for  the  purpose  of  acquir- 
ing one  for  his  father,  and  indirectly  for  himself,  he 
made  representations  to  the  Herald's  College  which 
were  not  only  false  but  ridiculous.  The  grant  was 
refused. 

"  Toward  the  close  of  the  year  1 599  a  renewed  attempt  was 
made  by  the  poet  to  obtain  a  grant  of  coat-armor  to  his  father. 
It  was  now  proposed  to  impale  the  arms  of  Shakespeare  with 

1  Thomas  Greene,  attorney,  "  residing  under  some  unknown  condi- 
tions at  New  Place."  —  Halliwell-Phillipps. 


28  Bacon  vs.  Shakspere. 

those  of  Arden,  and  on  each  occasion  ridiculous  statements 
were  made  respecting  the  claims  of  the  two  families."  — Halli- 
well-Phillipps1  O  tit  lines,  p.  87. 

The  officer  at  the  head  of  the  college,  Sir  William 
Dethick,  was  charged  with  connivance  at  the  forgery 
under  the  influence  of  a  bribe. 

XI.  He  was  also  hard  and  unfeeling  towards  the 
poor.  A  conspiracy  having  been  formed  by  a  few 
interested  persons  in  Stratford  for  enclosing  the  com- 
mons, he  was  induced  by  secret  means  to  favor  the 
movement,  although  the  authorities  of  the  town  in 
a  letter  to  him  protested  against  it  as  unjust  and 
oppressive  to  the  poorer  classes. 

"It  is  certain  that  he  was  in  favor  of  the  enclosures."  — 
Halliwell-Phillipps'  Outlines,  p.  168. 

XII.  Our  surprises  do  not  cease  at  his  death.  On 
the  heavy  stone  slab  that  marks  his  grave  in  the  old 
church  at  Stratford,  visitors  read  the  following  in- 
scription :  — 

"  Good  friend,  for  Jesus'  sake  forbear 
To  dig  the  dust  enclosed  here  : 
Blest  be  the  man  that  spares  these  stones, 
And  cursed  be  he  that  moves  my  bones." 

These  lines  are  evidently  his  own,1  for  the  impre- 
cation contained  in  them  prevented  his  wife,  who  sur- 
vived him,  from  being  laid  at  rest  by  his  side.2 

1  "  The  rudeness  of  the  verses  seems  to  us  a  proof  of  authenticity." 

—  Lowell's  Among  My  Books,  p.  17. 

2  "  He  was  buried  in  the  chancel  of  the  church,  because  that  local- 
ity was  the  legal  and  customary  burial  place  for  owners  of  the  tithes." 

—  Halliwell-Phillipps. 


Bust  of  Shakspere  at  Stratford-upon-Avon. 


William  Shakspere.  31 

XIII.  Shakspere  made  no  mention  of  any  literary- 
property  in  his  will.  He  was  careful  to  specify, 
among  other  bequests,  his  "  second-best  bed,"  but 
not  a  book,  not  one  of  his  own  books,  not  even  a 
manuscript,  though  one-half  of  all  the  works  that 
bear  his  name,  including  the  immortal  dramas  of 
'Macbeth,'  '  The  Tempest,'  and  'Julius  Caesar,'  were 
unpublished,  and  some  of  them  even  unknown,  at 
the  time  of  his  death.1 

"  He  had  no  books.  His  will  shows  the  fact.  He  leaves 
houses,  lands,  messuages,  orchards,  gardens,  wearing  apparel, 
furniture,  a  sword,  a  silver  and  gilt  punch-bowl,  a  second-best 
bed  for  his  wife  —  no  books.  He  had  twenty  thousand  dollars 
a  year,  and  not  a  volume.  The  man  who  wrote  '  Love's  Labor  's 
Lost,'  so  learned,  so  academic,  so  scholastic  in  expression  and 
allusion  that  it  is  unfit  for  popular  representation,  the  man 
whose  ample  page  is  rich  with  the  transfigured  spoils  of  ages*, 
that  man  lived  without  a  library!"  —  O'Connor's  Hamlet's 
Note  Book,  p.  75. 

XIV.  We  have  two  portraits  of  Shakspere,  each 
possessing  historically  some  claims  to  our  confidence. 
One  is  the  famous  bust  in  the  church  at  Stratford, 
placed  there   within   seven   years  after    Shakspere's 

1  "  It  is  simply  silly  to  talk,  as  the  commentators  will,  of  Shake- 
speare's omitting  to  mention  them  in  his  testaments  because  his  copy- 
rights had  expired,  or  because  he  or  his  representatives  had  sold 
them  to  the  Globe  Theatre.  .  .  .  These  plays  had  been  entered  on 
the  Stationers'  books,  and,  once  so  entered,  it  was  impossible  to 
alienate  them  to  the  Globe  Theatre  or  to  any  other  purchaser,  except 
by  registry  of  later  date.  .  .  .  The  record  of  alienation  could  have 
been  made  in  but  one  place,  and  it  was  never  made  there."  —  Appleton 
Morgan. 

The  cicerone  at  Stratford  informs  visitors  that  the  wicked  manu- 
scripts were  destroyed,  after  Shakspere's  death,  by  his  puritanical 
children  I 


32  Bacon  vs.  Shakspere. 

death.  This  is,  in  all  probability,  a  correct  likeness. 
That  it  was  not  set  up,  however,  by  any  one  in  Strat- 
ford is  evident  from  the  fact  that  Shakspere's  body  is 
said  in  one  of  the  inscriptions  to  be  "within  this 
monument,"  whereas  we  know  that  the  body  was 
buried  under  the  floor  of  the  chancel,  at  some  dis- 
tance from  the  bust,  and  with  one  other  grave  inter- 
vening between  them.1  Concerning  the  bust  itself 
we  quote  as  follows  :  — 

"  What  a  painful  stare,  with  its  goggle  eyes  and  gaping 
mouth  !  The  expression  of  the  face  has  been  credited  with 
humor,  bonhommie,  hilarity,  and  jollity.  To  me  it  is  decidedly 
clownish.1'  —  Norris1  Portraits  of  Shakespeare,  p.  18. 

"  No  one  can  look  upon  its  manifest  defects  without  wishing 
to  know  if  he  who  wrote  for  all  time  did  really  inhabit  such  a 
body  as  this."  —  Ibid. 

"  The  skull  has  the  smoothness  and  roundness  of  a  boy's 
marble,  and  about  as  much  individuality  or  expression.  .  .  . 
The  cheeks  are  puffy  and  spiritless ;  the  mustaches  are  curled 
up  in  a  manner  never  found  except  on  some  city  exquisite ;  .  .  . 
finally,  the  expression  of  the  eyes,  so  far  as  they  have  any,  is 
simply  that  of  easy,  rollicking  good  nature,  not  overburdened 
with  sense  or  intellect."  —  Prof.  J.  S.  Hart  in  Scribner's 
Monthly,  July,  1874. 

"  It  has  no  more  individuality  or  power  than  a  boy's  marble." — 
Fri swell's  Life  Portraits  of  Wm.  Shakespeare,  p.  10. 

Malone's  work,  in  covering  the  bust  with  a  coat  of  white 
paint,  "  did  not  altogether  obliterate  the  semblance  of  an  intel- 
lectual human  being,  and  this  is  more  than  can  be  said  of  the 
miserable  travesty  which  now  distresses  the  eye  of  the  pilgrim." 
—  Halliwell-Ph'illipps. 

"The  painted  figure-head-like  bust  is  hideous."  —  Richard 
Grant  White. 

1  "  It  is  not  likely  that  these  verses  [under  the  bust]  were  composed 
by  a  Stratfordian."  —  Halliwell-Pkillipps'  Outlines,  I.  285. 


Vf-XC^:"   »-<-k—   !      ,^'",J" 


Droeshout  Portrait  of  Shakspeke. 


William  Shakspere.  35 

The  other  portrait  is  the  Droeshout  engraving  on 
the  title-page  of  the  first  folio,  than  which  it  would 
be  impossible,  we  think,  to  imagine  anything  more 
hideous.  It  is,  without  doubt,  a  caricature.  For 
once  the  critics  are  agreed :  — 

"  A  hard,  wooden,  staring  thing."  — Richard  Grant  White. 

"  Even  in  its  best  state,  it  is  such  a  monstrosity  that  I,  for 
one,  do  not  believe  that  it  had  any  trustworthy  exemplar."  — 
Inglebys  The  Man  and  the  Book. 

"  It  is  not  known  from  what  it  was  copied,  and  many  think  it 
unlike  any  human  being."  —  Norris1  Portraits  of  Shakespeare, 
p.  18. 

"  The  hair  is  straight,  combed  down  the  sides  of  the  face,  and 
bunched  over  the  ears ;  the  forehead  is  disproportionately  high ; 
the  top  of  the  head  bald  ;  the  face  has  the  wooden  expression 
familiar  in  the  Indians  used  as  signs  for  tobacconists'  shops, 
accompanied  by  an  idiotic  stare  that  would  be  but  a  sorry 
advertisement  for  the  humblest  establishment  in  that  trade."  — 
Applet  on  Morgan. 

Of  the  new  portrait  of  Shakspere,  found  in  the 
house  of  the  Town  Clerk  of  Stratford  in  1861,  and 
preserved  among  the  treasures  of  the  birthplace,  Mr. 
Friswell  says :  — 

"  As  a  suggestion  of  the  face  of  Shakspere  it  would  be  very 
good,  save  for  the  weakness,  want  of  power,  and,  indeed,  vacu- 
ity which  is  to  be  seen  in  it." —  p.  57. 

"  I  have  very  little,  if  any,  doubt  that  this  portrait  was  copied 
from  the  bust,  at  the  very  earliest,  some  time  in  the  first  half  of 
the  last  century,  but  more  probably  about  the  time  of  the 
jubilee  in  1769."  1  —  Halliwell-Phillipps. 

1  The  number  of  different  portraits  of  Shakspere  in  existence  ex- 
ceeds three  hundred,  all  of  them,  with  the  exception  of  those  above 
mentioned,  purely  ideal.  It  is  worthy  of  remark,  however,  that  out 
of  these  has  come,  by  a  kind  of  evolution,  a  type  which  not  only  is 


36  Bacon  vs.  SJiakspere. 

XV.  So  far  as  we  know,  Shakspere  never  claimed 
the  authorship  of  the  plays.1  He  permitted  his  name 
to  be  used,  doubtless  for  good  and  sufficient  reasons, 
and  in  accordance  with  a  not  unusual  custom  at  that 
period,2  on  the  title-pages  of  fourteen  of  them  printed 
in  his  lifetime,  though  they  were  all  (thirty-seven  in 
number)  ascribed  to  him  unmistakably  in  the  collec- 
tive   editions   that    appeared    after    his   death.3     His 

characteristic  and  popular,  but  which  bears  a  singular  resemblance 
to  the  features  of  Francis  Bacon.  It  would  seem  as  though  artists 
were  unconsciously  striving  to  get  the  two  heads,  as  Mr.  Donnelly 
says,  "  under  one  hat." 

1  "  Shakespeare  never  claimed  the  plays  as  his  own.  .  .  .  He  was 
unquestionably  indifferent  about  them,  and  died  without  seeing  the 
most  remarkable  series  of  intellectual  works  that  ever  issued  from  the 
brain  of  man  in  the  custody  of  type." — The  Athenaum  (London), 
Sept.  13,  1856. 

"  I  pretend  to  no  special  erudition  in  English  literature,  but  have 
read  from  boyhood  that  Shakespeare  never  claimed  the  tragedies  as 
his,  nor  kept  any  copy  of  them."  —  Prof.  Francis  W.  Newman  in  The 
Echo,  Dec.  31,  1887. 

"  Here  are  plays  constantly  pirated,  and  yet  it  is  impossible  to  dis- 
cover that  anybody,  or  a  legal  representative  of  anybody,  named 
Shakespeare,  ever  set  up  a  claim  to  proprietorship  in  any  of  these 
works.'' — Appleton  Morgan. 

2  John  Rogers  published  an  edition  of  the  Bible  in  1537  with  the 
statement  that  it  was  "  truly  and  purely  translated  into  English  by 
Thomas  Matthew."  The  name  of  Thomas  Matthew  was  a  fictitious 
one,  the  work  itself  being  substantially  a  reprint  from  Tyndale  and 
Coverdale.     It  is  still  known,  however,  as  Matthew's  Bible. 

3  It  has  been  suggested  that  Bacon  could  not  have  voluntarily  de- 
prived himself  of  the  honor  of  having  written  the  plays,  if  he  were  the 
author  of  them ;  this  is  exactly  what  astonishes  us  in  Shakspere. 

"  But  for  them  [Heminge  and  Condell]  it  is  more  than  likely  that 
such  of  his  works  as  had  remained  to  that  time  [1623]  unprinted, 
would  have  been  irrecoverably  lost,  and  among  them  were  '  Julius 
Caesar,'  '  The  Tempest,'  and  '  Macbeth.'  "  —  Lowell's  Among  My 
Books,  p.  167. 

With  Shakspere,  the  choice  would  have  lain  between  fame  as  a 


William  Shakspere.  $7 

reticence  on  the  subject,  especially  after  his  retire- 
ment to  Stratford,  is  itself  significant.  His  fellow- 
townsmen,  it  is  probable,  never  witnessed  one  of 
these  productions  on  the  stage.  Neither  his  local 
fame  (if  he  had  any)  as  a  dramatist,  nor  the  influ- 
ence of  his  wealth  and  position  (if  exerted  by  him) 
overcame  their  repugnance  to  theatrical  representa- 
tions, for  in  1602  the  board  of  aldermen  prohibited 
any  performance  of  the  kind  in  the  town  under  a 
penalty  of  ten  shillings.  In  1612,  when  Shakspere's 
reputation  among  his  neighbors  should  have  been  at 
its  zenith,  the  penalty  was  increased  to  ten  pounds. 
The  key  to  the  situation  lies  in  his  stolidity  or  in  his 
sense  of  honor. 

XVI.  The  references  to  Shakspere,  direct  and  indi- 
rect, in  contemporaneous  literature  (1592-1616),  have 
been  carefully  collated  and  published.  They  number 
(reckoning  all  that  have  been  claimed,  some  of  which 
are  undoubtedly  spurious,  and  only  eighteen  refer  to 
Shakspere  by  name)  one  hundred  and  twenty-seven, 
and  may  be  classified  as  follows :  — 

Those  made  to  his  works,  one  hundred  and  twenty ; 
those  made  to  him  as  a  man,  seven.1  The  citations 
in  the  first  class  are,  of  course,  irrelevant  to  our 
purpose.  In  the  second,  we  find  statements  from 
the  following  named  persons:   Thomas  Nash,  1589; 

dramatist  and  oblivion  ;  with  Bacon,  between  fame  as  a  dramatist  and 
fame  as  a  statesman,  the  still  greater  one  (in  his  own  estimation)  of  a 
philosopher  being  assured. 

1  For  the  testimonies  of  Heminge,  Condell,  and  Leonard  Digges, 
given  in  1623,  see  page  148  et  seq.  These  ten  contemporaries  com- 
prise the  whole  number  of  those  whose  references  to  Shakspere  per- 
sonally have  come  down  to  us,  —  seven  during  his  lifetime,  and  three 
after  his  death.     For  Chettle's  alleged  testimony,  see  p.  iqo. 


$8  Bacon  vs.  Shakspere. 

Robert  Greene,  1592;  John  Manningham,  1601 ; 
two  anonymous  writers,  about  1605  ;  Thomas  Hey- 
wood,  161 2;  and  Ben  Jonson,  1616.  Nash  calls 
Shakspere  an  idiot ;  Greene,  a  Jack-at-all-trades ; 
Manningham  makes  him  the  hero  of  an  amour;  the 
anonymous  writers  refer  to  his  wealth,  to  his  landed 
proprietorship,  and  (one  of  them)  to  his  aspirations 
for  a  title ;  Heyvvood  is  indignant  because  two  of  his 
own  poems  had  been  published  by  a  piratical  printer 
as  Shakspere's,  although  (he  affirms)  without  the 
latter's  consent;  and  Ben  Jonson  caricatures  him  as 
a  Poet-Ape. 

With  the  exception  of  Manningham  and  Heywood, 
who  make  no  reference  to  the  subject,  all  these  writ- 
ers concur  in  attributing  some  sort  of  imposture  to 
Shakspere.  They  seem  to  recognize  in  him  a  pre- 
tence of  authorship  which  excites  their  contempt. 
Greene  makes  his  statement  from  a  dying  bed,  ad- 
dressing it  to  the  playwrights  Marlowe,  Nash  (or 
Lodge),  and  Peele,  as  though  they  also  were  familiar 
with  the  truth  of  what  he  writes.  Greene's  sincerity 
cannot  be  successfully  impugned.1  We  quote  these 
testimonials  as  follows  :  — 

A.  "  Amongst  this  kind  of  men  that  repose  eternity  in  the 
mouth  of  a  player  [as  distinguished  from  plays  in  print]  I  can 
but  engross  some  deep-read  schoolmen  or  grammarians  [persons 
educated  at  grammar-schools]  who  have  no  more  learning  in 
their  skull  than  will  serve  to  take  up  a  commodity  [to  keep  a 

1  It  is  painful  to  read  the  harsh  criticisms  on  Robert  Greene's  char- 
acter made  with  one  consent  by  all  Shakspereans.  Greene  differed 
from  his  associates,  so  far  as  we  can  see,  chiefly  in  one  particular, 
viz. :  he  repented  of  his  follies  and  with  his  dying  breath  tried  to 
induce  others  to  follow  his  example.  But  then,  at  the  same  time,  he 
pronounced  Shakspere  an  impostor.     Hinc  illcc  lacryma! 


William  Shakspere.  39 

tradesman's  books]  nor  art  in  their  brains ;  "  "idiot  art-masters, 
who  think  to  outbrave  better  pens  with  the  swelling  bombast  of 
bragging  blank  verse,  .  .  .  and  translate  two-penny  pamphlets 
from  the  Italian,  without  any  knowledge  even  of  its  articles.  .  .  . 
It  may  be  the  ingrafted  overflow  of  some  kill-cow  conceit."  — 
Nash's  Letter  prefixed  to  Greene's  '  MenaphonJ  1589. 

For  interpretation  of  the  above,  we  quote  from  a 
noted  Shaksperean :  — 

"  Nash  was  in  demand  for  his  style,  and  his  business  was  to 
reduce  to  pointed  form  the  matter  furnished  him  by  others. 
Hence  his  publications  of  1589  must  be  supposed  to  represent, 
not  the  fruits  of  his  own  experience,  but  the  ideas  decanted 
into  him.  Greene  may  be  assumed  to  have  crammed  him  with 
what  had  to  be  said  as  introduction  to  Menaphon ;  and  the 
identity  of  idea,  as  well  as  of  phrase,  between  Nash's  epistle 
and  things  which  Greene  subsequently  wrote  will  prove  this 
assumption  to  be  correct.  We  shall  see  that  the  actor-author, 
here  attacked  by  Nash,  is  assailed  in  the  same  phrases  as  the 
one  attacked  by  Greene  three  years  later,  in  his  '  Groatsworth  of 
Wit.'  But  in  the  latter  case  it  is  Shakspere  who  is  thus  as- 
sailed. Therefore  it  is  probably,  also,  Shakspere  in  the  former 
case.'-'  —  Simpson's  School  of  Shakspere,  II.  355. 

The  following  specifications,  drawn  from  points  in 
Nash's  epistle,  will  make  this  clearer :  — 

1.  Eternity  in  the  mouth  of  a  player,  and  not  in 
printed  plays. 

The  plays  of  "  Shake-speare  "  had  then  been  com- 
ing out  on  the  stage  for  several  years,  but  not  one  of 
them  had  been  printed.  The  earliest  quarto  edition 
of  a  "  Shake-speare "  play,  of  which  we  have  any 
record,  bears  date  1 591 . 

2.  /  can  but  engross  some  deep-read  schoolmen  or 
grammarians,  that  is,  persons  educated  at  grammar- 
schools. 


40  Bacon  vs.  Shakspere. 

Shakspere  had  had  no  opportunity  to  acquire  an 
education  beyond  that  afforded  by  the  grammar- 
school  of  his  native  village. 

3.  The  swelling  bombast  of  bragging  blank  verse. 

"  Shake-speare,"  not  Marlowe,  was  the  first  to 
introduce  blank  verse  on  a  large  scale  into  the  Eng- 
lish drama.  Not  only  was  Marlowe  three  years 
younger,  but  he  began  to  write  five  years  later,  than 
"  Shake-speare."  It  is  time  that  the  contrary  opin- 
ion, a  well-worn  fiction,  should  be  set  at  rest. 

4.  Translate  two-penny  pamphlets  from  the  Italian, 
without  any  knowledge  even  of  its  articles. 

The  plays  drawn  from  Italian  sources  or  laid  in 
Italian  scenes  and  antedating  Nash's  letter,  were 
'  The  Comedy  of  Errors,'  '  The  Taming  of  a  Shrew,' 
and  '  The  Two  Gentlemen  of  Verona.' 

5.  The  ingrafted  overflow  of  some  kill-cow  conceit. 
To  kill  the  cow  or  the  calf  was,  in  the  slang  phrase 

of  the  day,  to  make  extemporary  speeches  during  a 
performance  on  the  stage.  It  was  said  of  Shakspere, 
by  a  ridiculous  introversion  of  facts,  that  in  his 
younger  days,  when  apprenticed  as  a  butcher  to  his 
father,  "  he  would  kill  a  calf  in  high  style." 

The  whole  gravamen  of  Nash's  charge  is  that  some 
contemporary  playwright,  having  no  education  be- 
yond that  of  a  "  country  grammar-school,"  unable  to 
read  Italian  or  "  even  latinize  his  neck-verse,"  an 
idiot  art-master,  was  endangering  university  scholar- 
ship by  fraudulent  pretences.1 

1  The  prominent  dramatists  of  the  Elizabethan  age  were  univer- 
sity men.  Marlowe,  Greene,  Nash,  Fletcher,  and  Heywood  were 
educated  at  Cambridge;  Chapman,  Peele,  Daniel,  Beaumont,  Lodge, 
Lyly,  Drayton,  Ford,  and  Massinger,  at  Oxford.    Ben  Jonson  received 


William  Shakspere.  41 

B.  "  An  upstart  crow,  beautified  with  our  feathers,  that,  with 
his  tiger's  heart  wrapped  in  a  player's  hide,  supposes  he  is  as 
well  able  to  bombast  out  a  blank  verse  as  the  best  of  you,  and, 
being  an  absolute  Johannes  Factotum,  is,  in  his  own  conceit, 
the  only  Shake-scene  in  a  country."  —  Greene  s  Groatsworth  of 
Wit  (1592).1 

"Throughout  we  see  Greene's  determination  not  to  recog- 
nize Shakspere  as  a  man  capable  of  doing  anything  by  him- 
self. .  .  .  He  will  not  own  that  the  man  is  capable  of  having 
really  done  that  which  passes  for  his."  —  Simpson's  School  of 
Shakspere  (1878),  II.  389. 

C.  "  Thou  shalt  learn  to  be  frugal,  ...  to  feed  upon  all 
men,  .  .  .  and,  when  thou  feelest  thy  purse  well  lined,  buy  thee 
some  place  in  the  country."  —  RatsiYs  Ghost  (anon.),  1605. 

D.  "  With  mouthing  words  that  better  wits  have  framed, 

They  purchase  lands  and  now  esquires  are  made."  a 
Return  from  Parnassus  (anon.),  1606. 

E.  "  Poor  Poet-Ape,  that  would  be  thought  our  chief, 

Whose  works  are  e'en  the  frippery  of  wit, 
From  brokerage  is  become  so  bold  a  thief 

As  we,  the  robbed,  leave  rage  and  pity  it. 
At  first  he  made  low  shifts,  would  pick  and  glean, 

Buy  the  reversion  of  old  plays.     Now  grown 
To  a  little  wealth  and  credit  in  the  scene, 

He  takes  up  all,  makes  each  man's  wit  his  own, 

classical  instruction  at  the  famous  Westminster  school,  supplemented, 
it  is  believed,  by  a  course  at  Cambridge. 

1  In  1587  Greene  wrote  as  follows  of  the  author  of  '  Fair  Em,'  an 
anonymous  production  once  attributed  to  Shakspere :  — 

"The  ass  is  made  proud  by  this  underhand  brokery.  And  he  that 
cannot  write  true  English,  without  the  help  of  clerks  of  parish 
churches,  will  needs  make  himself  the  father  of  interludes."  —  Preface 
to  '  Farewell  to  Folly.' 

"  Greene  probably  did  not  mean  to  accuse  Shakespeare  of  theft, 
but  only  to  charge  him,  a  mere  actor  and  an  uneducated  peasant,  with 
intruding  among  authors."  —  Richard  Simpson. 

2  No  other  actor  is  known  at  that  time  to  have  possessed  large 
landed  property,  or  aspired  to  any  mark  of  social  distinction. 


42  Bacon  vs.  Shakspere. 

And  told  of  this,  he  slights  it.     Tut,  such  crimes 

The  sluggish,  gaping  auditor  devours  ; 
He  marks  not  whose  'twas  first,  and  after  times 

May  judge  it  to  be  his,  as  well  as  ours." 

Ben  Jonson. 

This  famous  epigram,  by  Ben  Jonson,  was  first 
printed  with  many  others  of  his  in  1616,  but  was 
written  several  years  earlier,  perhaps,  as  Mr.  Thomas 
W.  White  in  '  Our  English  Homer  '  conjectures,  in 
1598.  That  Shakspere  is  meant  appears  not  only 
from  other  and  similar  references  to  him  from  the 
same  pen  (to  be  cited  hereafter)  *  but  also  from  the 
following  considerations :  — 

1.  This  "  Poet-Ape  "  masqueraded  as  the  "chief" 
dramatist  of  the  age. 

2.  He  had  acquired  wealth. 

3.  He  had  the  habit  of  appropriating  to  his  own 
use,  freely  and  unscrupulously,  the  writings  of  others. 

We  add  one  more  testimony  of  the  same  tenure. 
We  omitted  it  from  our  computation,  given  above, 
for  the  reason  that  it  is  not  personal  enough  to  fall 
directly  within  the  scope  of  our  argument.  Never- 
theless, it  confirms  in  an  unmistakable  manner  the 
existence  at  that  time  of  some  great  imposture  on  the 
stage  :  — 

F.  "  Our  age  doth  produce  many  such,  one  of  the  greatest 
being  a  stage-player,  a  man  with  sufficient  ingenuity  for  imposi- 
tion." —  Confessio  Fratemitatis,  Chap.  XII.  (anon.  161 5). 2 

1  See  pp.  93-10S. 

2  It  has  been  contended  by  a  German  writer  that  the  person  re- 
ferred to  as  a  stage-player  by  the  author  of  the  Confessio  was  one 
Heinrich  Khunrath ;  but  Khunrath  was  not  a  stage-player  and,  at 
the  time  when  the  Confessio  was  published,  had  been  dead  fourteen 


William  Shakspere.  43 

Excepting  some  further  statements  made  by  Ben 
Jonson  (which  we  shall  give  in  their  proper  place), 
and  apart  from  the  official  records  of  baptism,  mar- 
riage, and  death,  of  transfers  of  property,  of  suits  at 
law,  and  of  two  fraudulent  and  abortive  applications 
for  a  title,  these  are  all  the  references  to  be  found  in 
contemporaneous  literature  to  William  Shakspere, 
the  man.  Every  one  of  them  implies  that  he  was 
an  impostor.  Not  a  word,  not  the  remotest  hint 
from  friend  or  foe  within  the  circle  of  his  acquaint- 
ance, of  a  transcendent  genius,  or,  indeed,  of  any 
literary  ability  whatever ! 

"  I  cannot  marry  this  fact  to  his  verse."  —  Ralph  Waldo 
Emerson. 

"  A  mere  fabulous  story,  a  blind  and  extravagant  error.  — 
Schlegel. 

"  To  this  individuality  we  tack  on  a  universal  genius,  which 
is  about  as  reasonable  as  it  would  be  to  take  the  controlling 
power  of  gravity  from  the  sun  and  attach  it  to  one  of  the  aster- 
oids." —  Whipple's  Literature  of  the  Age  of  Elizabeth,  p.  36. 

"  A  miraculous  [sic]  miracle."  —  Richard  Grant  White. 

"What!  are  we  to  have  miracles  in  sport?  .  .  .  Does  God 
choose  idiots  by  whom  to  convey  divine  truth  to  man  ? "  — 
Coleridge. 

years.  The  theory  seems  to  be  utterly  without  foundation.  It  ap- 
pears, also,  that  in  the  next  edition  of  the  book  this  passage  was 
omitted,  as  though  some  one,  influential  in  Rosicrucian  circles,  con- 
sidered it  dangerous,  even  in  its  obscurity. 


III. 

FRANCIS    BACON. 

"  If  there  was  a  Shakespeare  of  earth,  as  I  suspect,  there 
was  also  one  of  heaven  ;  and  it  is  of  him  that  we  desire  to 
know  something.''1  — Hallam. 

"  Shakespeare  is  a  voice  merely  ;  who  and  what  he  was 
that  sang,  that  sings,  we  know  not."  —  Ralph  Waldo 
Emerson. 

"  The  apparition  known  to  moderns  as  Shakespeare.'"  — 
James  Russell  Lowell. 

I.  Setting  aside  Shakspere,  Francis  Bacon  was 
the  most  original,  the  most  imaginative,  and  the 
most  learned  man  of  his  time. 

"  The  most  exquisitely  constructed  intellect  that  has  ever 
been  bestowed  on  any  of  the  children  of  men."  —  Macaulay. 

"  The  great  glory  of  literature  in  this  island,  during  the  reign 
of  James,  was  my  Lord  Bacon."  —  Hume. 

"  Lord  Bacon  was  the  greatest  genius  that  England,  or  per- 
haps any  other  country,  ever  produced."  —  Pope. 

"One  of  the  most  colossal  of  the  sons  of  men."  —  G.  L. 
Craik. 

"  Crown  of  all  modern  authors."  —  George  Sandys. 

"  He  possessed  at  once  all  those  extraordinary  talents  which 
were  divided  amongst  the  greatest  authors  of  antiquity.  He 
had  the  sound,  distinct,  comprehensive  knowledge  of  Aristotle, 
with  all  the  beautiful  lights,  graces,  and  embellishments  of 
Cicero.     One  does  not  know  which  to  admire  most  in  his  writ- 


V        V 


Francis  Bacon  at  the  Age  of  Nine. 


Francis  Bacon.  47 

ings,  the  strength  of  reason,  force  of  style,  or  brightness  of 
imagination."  — Addison. 

"  Next  to  Shakespeare,  the  greatest  name  of  the  Elizabethan 
age  is  that  of  Bacon.  Undoubtedly,  one  of  the  broadest, 
richest,  and  most  imperial  of  human  intellects."  —  E.  P. 
Whipple. 

"If  we  compare  what  may  be  found  in  the  sixth,  seventh,  and 
eighth  books  of  the  '  De  Augmentis,'  in  the  '  Essays,'  the 
'History  of  Henry  VII.,'  and  the  various  short  treatises  con- 
tained in  his  works  on  moral  and  political  wisdom,  and  on 
human  nature,  with  the  rhetoric,  ethics,  and  politics  of  Aris- 
totle, or  with  the  historians  most  celebrated  for  their  deep 
insight  into  civil  society  and  human  character,  —  with  Thucydi- 
des,  Tacitus,  Philippe  de  Comines,  Machiavel,  Davila,  Hume, 
—  we  shall,  I  think,  find  that  one  man  may  almost  be  compared 
with  all  of  these  together."  —  Hallam. 

"The  wisest,  greatest  of  mankind."  — Ibid. 

"  Columbus,  Luther,  and  Bacon  are,  perhaps,  in  modern 
times  the  men  of  whom  it  may  be  said  with  the  greatest  proba- 
bility that,  if  they  had  not  existed,  the  whole  course  of  human 
affairs  would  have  been  varied."  —  Edinbicrgh  Review. 

"  When  one  considers  the  sound  and  enlarged  views  of  this 
great  man,  the  multitude  of  objects  to  which  his  mind  was 
turned,  and  the  boldness  of  his  style  which  unites  the  most 
sublime  images  with  the  most  rigorous  precision,  one  is  dis- 
posed to  regard  him  as  the  greatest,  the  most  universal,  and  the 
most  eloquent  of  philosophers."  —  D' '  Alembert. 

"  His  imagination  was  fruitful  and  vivid ;  a  temperament  of 
the  most  delicate  sensibility,  so  excitable  as  to  be  affected  by 
the  slightest  alterations  of  the  atmosphere."  —  Montagu. 

"  He  belongs  to  the  realm  of  the  imagination,  of  eloquence, 
of  jurisprudence,  of  ethics,  of  metaphysics ;  his  writings  have 
the  gravity  of  prose,  with  the  fervor  and  vividness  of  poetry." — 
Prof.  Welsh. 

"  Who  is  there  that,  hearing  the  name  of  Bacon,  does  not 
instantly  recognize  everything  of  genius  the  most  profound,  of 
literature  the  most  extensive,  of  discovery  the  most  penetrating, 
of  observation  of  human  life  the  most  distinguishing  and 
refined  ?  "  —  Edmund  Burke. 


48  Bacoii  vs.  Shakspere. 

"  Shakespeare  and  the  seers  do  not  contain  more  expressive 
or  vigorous  condensations,  more  resembling  inspiration;  in 
Bacon,  they  are  to  be  found  everywhere."  —  Taine. 

"  No  other  author  can  be  compared  with  him,  unless  it  be 
Shakespeare."  —  Prof.  Fowler. 

"He  was  a  genius  second  only  to  Shakespeare."  —  Prof. 
Church. 

"  Bacon  little  knew  or  suspected  that  there  was  then  existing 
(the  only  one  that  ever  did  exist)  his  superior  in  intellectual 
power."  —  Walter  Savage  Landor. 

Addison,  referring  to  a  prayer  composed  by  Bacon,  says  that 
"  for  elevation  of  thought  and  greatness  of  expression  it  seems 
rather  the  devotion  of  an  angel  than  that  of  a  man." 

Prof.  Fowler  pronounces  this  prayer  "  the  finest  bit  of  com- 
position in  the  English  language." 

II.  Bacon  came  of  a  family  eminent  for  learning. 
His  father,  Nicholas  Bacon,  was  Lord  Chancellor  and 
Keeper  of  the  Great  Seal  under  Elizabeth ;  his 
mother,  daughter  of  Sir  Anthony  Cooke,  tutor  of 
Edward  VI. 

Of  Bacon's  mother,  Macaulay  writes  :  — 

"  She  was  distinguished  both  as  a  linguist  and  a  theologian. 
She  corresponded  in  Greek  with  Bishop  Jewell,  and  translated 
his  '  Apologia'  from  the  Latin  so  correctly  that  neither  he  nor 
Archbishop  Parker  could  suggest  a  single  alteration.  She  also 
translated  a  series  of  sermons  on  fate  and  free-will  from  the 
Tuscan  of  Bernardo  Ochino.  Her  sister,  Katherine,  wrote 
Latin  hexameters  and  pentameters  which  would  appear  with 
credit  in  the  '  Musae  Etonenses.'  Mildred,  another  sister,  was 
described  by  Roger  Ascham  as  the  best  Greek  scholar  among 
the  young  women  of  England,  Lady  Jane  Grey  always  ex- 
cepted." 

III.  Bacon  had  a  strong  desire  for  public  employ- 
ment, due,  it  is  fair  to  infer,  to  the  consciousness  that 
he   possessed  exceptional  powers  for  the  service  of 


Degradation  of  the  Stage.  49 

the  state.  It  was  a  creditable  ambition,  though  the 
methods  then  in  vogue  to  gratify  it  would,  according 
to  modern  standards,  hardly  be  deemed  consistent 
with  personal  honor.  It  is  certain  that  the  reputa- 
tion of  being  a  poet,  and  particularly  a  dramatic  poet, 
writing  for  pay,  would  have  compromised  him  at 
court.1  In  those  days  play-acting  and  play-writing 
were  considered  scarcely  respectable.  The  first  the- 
atre in  London  was  erected  in  1576,  ten  or  twelve 
years  only  before  the  earliest  production  of  '  Hamlet.' 
The  Government,  in  the  interest  of  public  morals, 
frowned  upon  the  performances.  The  Lord  Mayor, 
in  1597,  at  the  very  time  when  the  greatest  of  the 
"  Shake-speare  "  Plays  were  coming  out,  denounced 
the  theatre  as  a  "  place  for  vagrants,  thieves,  horse- 
stealers, contrivers  of  treason,  and  other  idle  and 
dangerous  persons."  One  man  published  a  book 
entitled  "  A  Pleasant  Invective  against  Poets,  Pipers, 
Players,  Jesters,  and  such  like  caterpillars." 2  An- 
other lamented  because  the  people  were  given  over 
to  playing  and  dancing,  instead  of  those  exercises  of 
the  olden  times,  when  "they  went  naked  and  were 
good  soldiers;  when  they  fed  upon  roots  and  barks 
of  trees,  and  could  stand  up  to  the  chin  many  days 
in  marshes  without  victuals." 

1  It  is  only  in  recent  times  that  a  professional  author  has  come, 
under  the  most  favorable  circumstances,  to  be  considered  in  England 
a  gentleman.  To  look  to  any  kind  of  literary  composition  for  a  reve- 
nue was,  in  the  time  of  Bacon,  sufficient  to  degrade  anv  man  from  that 
rank  in  which,  according  to  Blackstone,  no  one  was  tolerated  who 
could  not  "live  idly  and  without  manual  labor." — Commentaries, 
I.  406. 

2  The  author  of  this  book,  Stephen  Gosson,  is  commended  for  it  by 
Mr.  Allibone  in  his  '  Dictionary  of  Authors.' 

4 


cjo  Bacon  vs.  Shakspere. 

Taine  speaks  of  the  stage  in  Shakespeare's  day  as 
"  degraded  by  the  brutalities  of  the  crowd,  who  not 
seldom  would  stone  the  actors,  and  by  the  severities 
of  the  magistrates,  who  would  sometimes  condemn 
them  to  lose  their  ears."  He  thus  describes  the  play- 
house, as  it  then  existed  :  — 

"  On  a  dirty  site  on  the  banks  of  the  Thames  rose  the  prin- 
cipal theatre,  the  Globe,  a  sort  of  hexagonal  tower,  surrounded 
by  a  muddy  ditch.  Over  it  was  hoisted  a  red  flag.  The  com- 
mon people  could  enter  as  well  as  the  rich  ;  there  were  six- 
penny, two-penny,  even  penny  seats ;  but  no  one  could  gain 
admittance  without  money.  If  it  rained  (and  it  often  rains  in 
London),  the  people  in  the  pit  —  butchers,  mercers,  bakers, 
sailors,  apprentices  —  received  the  streaming  rain  upon  their 
heads.  I  suppose  they  did  not  trouble  themselves  about  it ; 
it  was  not  so  long  since  that  they  had  begun  to  pave  the 
streets  of  London,  and  when  men  like  these  have  had  experi- 
ence of  sewers  and  puddles,  they  are  not  afraid  of  catching 
cold. 

"  While  waiting  for  the  piece,  they  amuse  themselves  after 
their  fashion,  —  drink  beer,  crack  nuts,  eat  fruits,  howl,  and 
now  and  then  resort  to  their  fists ;  they  have  been  known  to 
fall  upon  the  actors  and  turn  the  theatre  upside  down.  At 
other  times,  when  they  were  dissatisfied,  they  went  to  the  tavern 
to  give  the  poet  a  hiding,  or  toss  him  in  a  blanket.  When  the 
beer  took  effect,  there  was  a  great  upturned  barrel  in  the  pit,  a 
peculiar  receptacle  for  general  use.  The  smell  rises,  and  then 
comes  the  cry,  '  Burn  the  juniper ! '  They  burn  some  in  a  plate 
on  the  stage,  and  the  heavy  smoke  fills  the  air.  Certainly,  the 
folk  there  assembled  could  scarcely  get  disgusted  at  anything, 
and  cannot  have  had  sensitive  noses." 

It  may  easily  be  imagined  that  Bacon,  considering 
his  high  birth,  aristocratic  connections,  and  aspirancy 
for  official  honors,  and  already  projecting  a  vast 
philosophical  reform  for  the  human  race,  would  have 


Matthew's  Postscript.  51 

shrunk  from   open  alliance  with  an   institution    like 
this.1 

IV.  To  his  confidential  friend,  Sir  Toby  Matthew, 
Bacon  was  in  the  habit  of  sending  copies  of  his  books 
as  they  came  from  the  press.  On  one  of  these  occa- 
sions he  forwards,  with  an  air  of  mystery  and  half 
apologetically,  certain  works  which  he  describes  as 
the  product  of  his  "  recreation,"  called  by  him,  also, 
curiously,  "works  of  the  alphabet,"  upon  which  not 
even  Mrs.  Pott's  critical  acumen  has  been  able  to 
throw,  from  sources  other  than  conjecture,  any 
light.2  In  a  letter  addressed  to  Bacon  by  Mat- 
thew   while    abroad,    in    acknowledgment    of    some 

1  "  It  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  actors  occupied  an  inferior  posi- 
tion in  society,  and  that  even  the  vocation  of  a  dramatic  writer  was 
considered  scarcely  respectable."  —  Halliwell-Phillipps. 

"  Lodge  [a  contemporary  of  '  Shake-speare  '],  who  had  never  trod 
the  stage,  but  had  written  several  plays,  speaks  of  the  vocation  of  the 
playmaker  as  sharing  the  odium  attaching  to  the  actor.  At  this  day 
we  can  scarcely  realize  the  scorn  which  was  thrown  on  all  sides  upon 
those  who  made  acting  a  means  of  livelihood."  —  Dr.  Ingleby. 

Under  a  law  enacted  in  1572,  any  person,  exercising  the  profession 
of  an  actor  without  license  from  two  justices  or  the  written  protection 
of  a  nobleman,  was  liable  to  be  arrested,  to  be  whipped,  and  to  have 
his  right  ear  bored  with  a  hot  iron  not  less  than  one  inch  in  cir- 
cumference. Professional  actors  were  forbidden  even  the  rites  of 
Christian  burial. 

2  "  In  1623,  Bacon  writes  to  Sir  Tobie  Matthew  about  putting  the 
'alphabet  in  a  frame;'  if  this  was  their  cipher,  the  frame  was  the 
1623  folio.  Such  enigmatical  talk  between  two  friends  is  evidence 
that  they  were  both  interested  in  some  secret  which  they  would  not 
openly  refer  to."  —  Francis  Fearon  in  Bacon  Journal,  I.  57. 

Printers  lock  up  their  type  in  n  frame. 

In  still  another  letter  to  Matthew,  written  in  1604,  at  about  the 
time  that  the  great  tragedies  of  '  Hamlet,'  '  Macbeth,'  '  King  Lear,' 
and  'Othello'  were  appearing,  he  apologizes  for  some  neglect  on 
the  ground  that  his  head  had  been  "  wholly  employed  upon  inven- 
tion," i.  e.  upon  works  of  imagination. 


52  Bacon  vs.  Shakspere. 

"great    and   noble    token    and    favor,"    we   find   this 
postscript:  — 

"  The  most  prodigious  wit  that  ever  I  knew,  of  my  nation  and 
of  this  side  of  the  sea,  is  of  your  lordship's  name,  though  he  be 
known  by  another." 

It  has  been  plausibly  suggested  that  the  "  token  of 
favor,"  sent  to  Matthew,  was  the  folio  edition  of  the 
"  Shake-speare  "  Plays,  published  in  1623.  It  is  cer- 
tain that  Matthew's  letter  was  written  subsequently 
to  January  27,  162 1.1 

1  Various  attempts  have  been  made  to  break  the  force  of  this  testi- 
mony. It  has  been  urged  that,  as  Bacon  had  been  raised  to  the  peer- 
age, he  had  acquired  another  name  under  which  to  publish  his  works. 
This  seems  too  frivolous  for  serious  remark.  It  has  also  been  con- 
jectured that  Matthew  may  have  been  in  Madrid,  where  a  certain 
Francisco  de  Quevedo  was  writing  under  a  pseudonym.  Unfortu- 
nately for  this  theory,  the  Spaniard  (who  has  never  become  distin- 
guished, so  far  as  we  know,  for  "prodigious  wit")  retained  the  name 
of  Francisco,  the  only  part  that  suggested  Bacon's,  in  his  pseudonym. 
The  simple  truth  is,  Matthew's  description  exactly  fits  the  "  Shake- 
speare "  Plays  and  Bacon's  literary  alias. 

Indeed,  is  it  credible  that  Matthew  would  have  written  to  Bacon, 
the  Lord  Chancellor  of  England,  author  of  the  Novum  Organum 
(then  published),  and  his  benefactor,  the  only  friend  who  stood  by 
him,  in  his  apostasy  to  Rome,  when  all  others,  even  his  own  father 
and  mother  cast  him  off,  that  he  had  found  on  the  Continent  a  person 
(then  and  ever  since  unknown)  bearing  his  lordship's  name,  but 
superior  to  his  lordship  in  learning  or  wit  ?  Is  it  necessary  to  impute 
to  Matthew  so  gross  a  violation  of  good  taste,  not  to  say  a  gratuitous 
insult  to  his  correspondent  ?  On  the  contrary,  who  does  not  see  that 
this  same  "  most  prodigious  wit,"  the  greatest  (according  to  the  post- 
script)  of  all  the  world,  was  at  another  time  also  described  by  Matthew 
in  the  following  words  :  — 

"  A  man  so  rare  in  knowledge,  of  so  many  several  kinds,  indued 
with  the  facility  and  felicity  of  expressing  it  all  in  so  elegant,  signifi- 
cant, so  abundant,  and  yet  so  choice  and  ravishing  a  way  of  words,  of 
metaphors  and  allusions,  as  perhaps  the  world  has  not  seen  since  it 


The  Promus.  53 

V.  Bacon  kept  a  commonplace  book  which  he 
called  a  Promus,  now  in  the  archives  of  the  British 
Museum.  It  consisted  of  several  large  sheets,  on 
which  from  time  to  time  he  jotted  down  all  kinds  of 
suggestive  and  striking  phrases,  proverbs,  aphorisms, 
metaphors,  and  quaint  turns  of  expression,  found  in 
the  course  of  his  reading  and  available  for  future 
use.  With  the  exception  of  the  proverbs  from  the 
French,  the  entries,  one  thousand  six  hundred  and  fifty- 
five  in  number,  are  in  his  own  handwriting.  These 
verbal  treasures  are  scattered,  as  thick  as  the  leaves  of 
Vallombrosa,  throughout  the  Plays.  Mrs.  Pott  finds, 
by  actual  count,  four  thousand  four  hundred  and  four 
instances  in  which  they  are  reproduced  there  —  some 
of  them  in  more  or  less  covert  or  modified  form  — 
over  and  over  again.  We  can  almost  see  the  archi- 
tect at  work,  imbedding  these  gems  of  beauty  and 
wisdom  in  the  wonderful  structures  to  which,  accord- 
ing to  Matthew,  he  gave  the  name  of  another. 
While  they  appear  to  a  limited  extent  in  Bacon's 
prose  works,  they  seem  to  have  constituted  a  store- 
house of  materials  for  particular  use  in  the  composi- 
tion of  the  Plays. 

Two  of  these  entries  reappear  in  a  single  sentence 
in  '  Romeo  and  Juliet.'     One  is  the  unusual  phrase, 

was  a  world."  —  Address  to  the  Reader,  prefixed  to  Collection  of  Ettglisk 
Letters,  1660. 

This,  of  course,  was  Francis  Bacon.  The  two  portraitures  are 
identical. 

An  amusing  discussion,  prompted  by  Mr.  Appleton  Morgan,  on  this 
subject  was  published  in  S/iakespeartana  (VIII.  44)  in  1S91.  In  it  two 
noted  anti-Baconians  endeavored  to  explain  this  postscript,  but  ended 
simply  in  refuting  each  other's  theories.  Our  readers  will  find  in  this 
correspondence  an  addition  to  the  comic  literature  of  the  age. 


54  Bacon  vs.  Shakspere. 

"  golden  sleep ;  "  and  the  second,  the  new  word, 
"  uproused,"  then  added  for  the  first  time,  like  hun- 
dreds of  others  in  the  Plays,  out  of  the  same  mint,  to 
the  verbal  coinage  of  the  realm. 

"  But  where  unbruised  youth  with  unstuffed  brain 
Doth  couch  his  limbs,  there  golden  sleep  doth  reign; 
Therefore,  thy  earliness  doth  me  assure, 
Thou  art  uproused  by  some  distemperature."  —  II.  3. 

To  one  familiar  with  the  laws  of  chance,  these  co- 
incidences will  fall  little  short  of  a  mathematical 
demonstration. 

'■  One  of  these  entries  would  prove  little  or  nothing,  but  any 
one,  accustomed  to  evidence,  will  perceive  that  two  constitute  a 
coincidence,  amounting  almost  to  a  demonstration,  that  either 
[1]  Bacon  and  Shakespeare  borrowed  from  some  common  and 
at  present  unknown  source ;  or  [2]  one  of  the  two  borrowed 
from  the  other."  — E.  A.  Abbott,  in  his  Introduction  to  Mrs. 
Pott's  Edition  of  the  Prom  us. 

Perhaps  the  most  interesting  feature  of  the  Promus 
is  the  group  of  salutatory  phrases  it  contains,  such  as 
good-morning,  good-day,  and  good-night,  which  had 
not  then  come  into  general  use  in  England,  but  which 
occur  two  hundred  and  fifty  times  in  the  Plays. 
These  salutations,  however,  were  common  at  that 
time  in  France,  where  Bacon,  as  attache  of  the 
British  Embassy,  had  spent  three  years  in  the  early 
part  of  his  life.  To  him  we  are  doubtless  indebted 
for  these  little  amenities  of  speech.1 

1  One  or  two  specimens  have  been  found  in  earlier  literature,  but 
the  statement  in  the  text  is  substantially  correct.  These  salutations 
did  not  take  root  in  English  speech  till  they  were  implanted  there  by 
the  author  of  the  Plays.  Their  presence  in  Bacon's  scrap-book  is 
alone  sufficient  evidence  that  they  were  new. 


The  Promus.  55 

Particular  attention  is  called  to  the  entry  "good-dawning,"  a 
style  of  address  which  Bacon  failed  to  make  popular,  and  which 
is  found  but  once  in  the  whole  range  of  English  literature  out- 
side of  the  Promus,  —  in  '  King  Lear.' 

The  date  of  the  Promus  (a  strictly  private  record,  published 
for  the  first  time  in  1882)  was  1594;  that  of  the  play,  1606.  In 
one,  the  seed ;  the  only  plant  from  that  seed,  in  the  other. 

"  The  phrase  '  good-dawning '  is  found  only  once  in  Shake- 
speare, put  into  the  mouth  of  the  affected  Oswald  [Lear,  II.  2], 
'  Good-dawning  to  thee,  friend.'  The  quartos  are  so  perplexed 
by  this  strange  phrase  that  they  alter  '  dawning  '  into  '  even,' 
although  a  little  farther  on  Kent  welcomes  the  '  comfortable 
beams  of  the  rising  sun.'  Obviously  'dawning'  is  right;  but 
did  the  phrase  suggest  itself  independently  to  Bacon  and 
Shakespeare  ? 

"Again,  Bacon  has  thought  it  worth  while  to  enter  the 
phrase  'good-morrow.'  What  does  this  mean?  It  is  one  of 
the  commonest  phrases  in  the  plays  of  Shakespeare,  occurring 
there  nearly  a  hundred  times ;  why,  then,  did  Bacon  take  note 
of  a  phrase  so  noteworthless,  if  it  were  at  that  time  in  com- 
mon use?" — E.  A.  Abbott.1 

No  dialogues  are  found  in  Bacon's  acknowledged  works,  and 
yet  the  Promus  abounds  in  colloquialisms,  of  which  the  follow- 
ing are  specimens :  — 

What  else  ?  You  put  me  in  mind 

How  now  ?  If  that  be  so 

Say  that  Is  it  because 

Peradventure,  can  you  ?  Nothing  less 

See,  then,  how  Much  less 

For  the  rest  If  you  be  at  leisure 

Your  reason  The  rather  because 

0  the  O,  my  lord,  sir 
Believe  it  Believe  it  not 

1  would  not  you  had  done  it        Never,  may  it  please  you 
Repeat  your  reason  Come  to  the  point 

1  Dr.  Abbott  makes  these  admissions  while  disavowing  Mrs.  Pott's 
theory. 


56  Bacon  vs.  Skakspere. 

Answer  me  directly  Hear  me  out 

Answer  me  shortly  Let  me  make  an  end  of  the  tale 

What  will  you  ?  You  take  more  than  is  granted 

Is  it  possible  ?  That  is  not  so,  by  your  favor 

You  take  it  right  What  shall  be  the  end? 

Let  it  not  displease  you  I  object 

I  distinguish  I  demand 

You  go  from  the  matter  Well 

Verily,  by  my  reason  it  is  so       You  have  forgot  nothing 

We  mention  one  more  entry,  No.  1096:  "law  at 
Twickenham  for  the  merry  tales."  Twickenham 
was  a  country-seat  to  which  Bacon  frequently  re- 
tired, and  where  works  of  his  "recreation"  would 
naturally  have  been  written.  The  plays  in  which 
legal  principles  are  most  frequently  stated  and 
applied  were  produced  at  or  near  the  time  of  the 
Promus.1 

Mr.  Spedding  published  a  few  only  of  the  Promus 
entries  in  his  edition  of  Bacon's  works,  alleging  that 
he  could  make  nothing  of  them.  And  yet  the  Pro- 
mus was  the  only  extended  work  he  found  in  Bacon's 

1  In  regard  to  proverbs,  Mrs.  Pott  makes  the  following  computa- 
tions :  English  proverbs  in  the  Fromus,  203  ;  reproduced  in  the  plays, 
152.  French,  Italian,  and  Spanish  proverbs  in  the  Promus,  240; 
reproduced  in  the  plays,  150.  Latin  [Erasmus]  proverbs  in  the 
Promus,  225;  reproduced  in  the  plays,  218. 

"  It  may  be  broadly  asserted  that  the  English,  French,  Italian, 
Spanish,  and  Latin  proverbs,  which  are  noted  in  the  Promus  and 
quoted  in  Shakespeare,  are  not  found  in  other  literature  of  the 
fifteenth,  sixteenth,  and  seventeenth  centuries."  — Preface  to  Bacon  s 
Promus,  p.  84. 

"There  are  about  two  hundred  English  terms  of  expression  entered 
in  the  Promus.  Of  these,  seventeen  only  have  been  discovered  in 
works  written  between  the  fifteenth  and  eighteenth  centuries,  other 
than  the  prose  works  of  Bacon  and  the  plays."  —  Ibid.,  p.  83. 


Parallelisms.  57 

own  handwriting.  If  Mr.  Spedding  had  failed  to 
understand  the  '  Novum  Organum,'  would  he  have 
omitted  that  also? 

"  The  real  significance  of  the  Promus  consists  in  the  enor- 
mous proportion  of  notes  which  Bacon  could  not  possibly  have 
used  in  his  acknowledged  writings ;  the  colloquialisms,  dramatic 
repartees,  turns  of  expression,  proverbs,  etc.  Any  biographer 
of  Bacon,  whatever  his  notions  as  to  the  Shakespearean  author- 
ship, may  be  reasonably  expected  to  offer  some  explanation  of 
this  queer  assortment  of  oddments,  and  to  find  out,  if  possible, 
what  use  Bacon  made  of  them ;  and  then  our  case  becomes 
urgent."  —  R.  M.  Theobald. 

"  Why  Bacon  wrote  down  phrases  like  this,  here  and  there 
[in  the  Promus],  seems  inexplicable."  —  Richard  Grant  White. 

VI.  Other  internal  evidences  also  point  unmistak- 
ably to  Bacon's  pen.  Peculiarities  of  thought,  style, 
and  diction  are  more  important  in  a  contested  case  of 
authorship  than  the  name  on  the  title-page,  for  there 
we  find  the  author's  own  signature  in  the  very  fibre 
of  his  work.  We  have  only  to  hold  the  Plays,  as  it 
were,  up  to  the  light,  to  see  the  water-mark  imprinted 
in  them.  To  elucidate  this  point,  we  offer  the  fol- 
lowing parallelisms:  — 

FROM  SHAKESPEARE.  FROM  BACON. 

"  There  is  a  tide  in  the  affairs         "  Tn  the  third   place,    I    set 

of  men  down  reputation,  because  of  the 

Which,  taken  at   the  flood,     peremptory  tides  and  currents 

leads  on  to  fortune  ;  it  hath,  which,  if  they  be  not 

taken  in  their  due  time,  are  sel- 

And  we  must  take  the  cur-     dom     recovered."  —  Advance- 

rent  when  it  serves,  7?icnt  of  Learning. 

Or  lose  our  ventures." 

Julius  C&sar,  IV.  3. 


58 


Bacon  vs.  Shakspere. 


"  To  thine  own  self  be  true, 
And  it  must  follow,   as  the 

night  the  day, 
Thou  canst  not  then  be  false 
to  any  man." 

Hamlet,  I.  3. 

"  That  strain  again ;  —  it  had 
a  dying  fall : 
O,  it  came  o'er  my  ear  like 

the  sweet  south, 
That  breathes  upon  a  bank 

of  violets, 
Stealing  and  giving  odor." 
Twelfth  Night,  1 .  1 

"  This  majestical  roof  fretted 
with  golden  fire." 

Hamlet,  II.  2. 


"  Be  so  true  to  thyself  as 
thou  be  not  false  to  others." 
—  Essay  of  Wisdom. 


"  The  breath  of  flowers  .  .  . 
comes  and  goes  like  the  war- 
bling of  music."  —  Essay  of 
Gardens. 


"  For  if  that  great  work- 
master  had  been  of  a  human 
disposition,  he  would  have  cast 
the  stars  into  some  pleasant 
and  beautiful  works  and  orders, 
like  the  frets  in  the  roofs  of 
houses."  —  Advancement  of 
Learning. 


"  By  a  divine  instinct,  men's        "  As    there     are  .  .  .  secret 
minds  mistrust  swellings  of  seas  before  a  tern- 

Ensuing  danger;  as,  by  proof,     pest,  so  there  are  in  States."  — 

we  see  Essay  of  Sedition. 

The     waters     swell     before 
a  boist'rous  storm." 

Richard  III.,  II.  3. 

"Who  having  unto  truth,  by         "With    long   and    continual 


telling  of  it, 
Made    such   a  sinner  of  his 

memory, 
To  credit  his  own  lie." 

Tempest,  I.  2. 


counterfeiting  and  with  oft 
telling  a  lie,  he  was  turned  by 
habit  almost  into  the  thing  he 
seemed  to  be  ;  and  from  a  liar 
to  a  believer."  —  History  of 
Henry    VII. 


Parallelisms. 


59 


"  The  ivy  which  had  hid  my 
princely  trunk, 
And  sucked  my  verdure  out 
on  't." 

Tempest,  I.  2. 

"  Let  him  be  his  own  carver." 
Richard II,  II.  3. 

"  I  shall  show  the  cinders  of 

my  spirits 
Through    the   ashes   of  my 

chance." 
Antony  and  Cleopatra,  V.  2. 

"  Lo  !  as  at  English  feasts,  so 
I  regreet 
The  daintiest  last,  to  make 
the  end  most  sweet." 

Richard  II.,  I.  3. 

"  Nothing  almost  sees  mir- 
acles 
But  misery." 

King  Lear,  II.  2. 

"  The  rogue  fled  from  me  like 
quicksilver." 

2  Henry  IV.,  II.  4. 


"  It  was  ordained  that  this 
winding-ivy  of  a  Plantagenet 
should  kill  the  tree  itself."  — 
History  of  Henry  VII. 

"  You  shall  not  be  your 
own  carver." — Advancement 
of  Learning. 

"  The  sparks  of  my  affec- 
tion shall  ever  rest  quick  under 
the  ashes  of  my  fortune."  — 
Letter  to  Falkla?id. 


"  Let  not  this  Parliament  end 
like  a  Dutch  feast  in  salt 
meats,  but  like  an  English  feast 
in  sweet  meats."  —  Speech  in 
Parliament,  1604. 

"  Certainly,  if  miracles  be 
the  control  over  nature,  they 
appear  most  in  adversity."  — 
Essay  of  Adversity. 

"  It  was  not  long  but  Per- 
kin,  who  was  made  of  quick- 
silver (which  is  hard  to  im- 
prison), began  to  stir ;  for,  de- 
ceiving his  keepers,  he  took 
to  his  heels,  and  made  speed  to 
the  sea-coast."  —  History  of 
Henry  VII. 

"  When   we   our    betters    see  "  Amongst  consolations  it  is 

bearing  our  woes,  not  the  least  to  represent  to  a 

We  scarcely  think  our  mis-     man's    self    like    examples   of 
eries  our  foes.  calamity  in  others.     If  our  bet- 

ters  have    sustained    the    like 


6o 


Bacon  vs.  Shakspere. 


"  The  mind  much  suffrance 

doth  o'erskip, 
When  grief  hath  mates,  and 

bearing  fellowship. 
How  light  and  portable  my 

pain  seems  now, 
When  that  which  makes  me 

bend    makes    the    king 

bow." 

King  Lear,  III.  6. 

"  My   Dionyza,  shall  we  rest 
us  here, 
And,    by   relating    tales    of 

other's  griefs, 
See  if  't  will  teach  us  to  for- 
get our  own  ?  " 

Pericles,  I.  4. 

"  Of  comfort,  no  man  speak,  . . . 
For   God's   sake,    let   us   sit 

upon  the  ground 
And  tell   sad  stories  of   the 
death  of  kings."  1 

Richard  //.,  III.  2. 


events,  we  have  the  less  cause 
to  be  grieved."  —Letter  to 
Bishop  Andrews. 


"  Honorificabilitudinitatibus."  "  Honorificabilitudino/'  2  — 

Love's  Labor  V  Lost.     MS.    Title-page     of    one      of 
Bacon's   Works. 

"  Had  I  but  served  my  God         "  Cardinal  Wolsey  said  that 
with  half  the  zeal  if  he  had  pleased  God  as  he 

1  It  will  be  observed  that  this  is  not  the  commonplace  sentiment 
respecting  companions  in  misery,  but  an  opinion  continually  crop- 
ping out  in  Bacon  and  "  Shake-speare,"  that  one  may  find  consolation 
in  any  misfortune  by  calling  to  mind  similar  experiences  in  the  lives 
of  others,  particularly  of  those  who  in  times  past  have  done  great 
deeds  for  humanity. 

2  This  word  is  found  in  these  two  places  only  in  all  the  world's 
literature. 


Parallelisms. 


61 


I  served  my  king,  he  would 

not  in  mine  age 
Have  left  me  naked  to  mine 

enemies." 

Henry  VIII.,  III.  2. 

"  Ere  my  tongue 

Shall  wound  mine  honor  with 
such  feeble  wrong, 

Or  sound  so  base  a  parle,  my 
teeth  shall  tear 

The  slavish  motive  of  recant- 
ing fear, 

And   spit   it   bleeding,    in  his 
high  disgrace, 

Where  shame  doth  harbor,  even 
in  Mowbray's  face." 

Richard  II.,  I.  I. 

"  Viola.     'T  is  poetical. 
Olivia.    It  is  the  more  likely 
to  be  feigned." 
Twelfth  Night,  I.  5. 

"  How  shall  we  stretch  our 
eye  when  capital  crimes,chew'd, 
swallow 'd,  and  digested,  ap- 
pear before  us  ?  "  —  Henry  V., 
II.  2. 

"  I  saw  him  run  after  a  gilded 
butterfly ;  and,  when  he  caught 
it,  he  let  it  go  again ;  and  after 
it  again."  *  —  Coriolanns,  I.  3. 


had  pleased  the  king,  he  had 
not  been  ruined." — Letter[ first 
draft]  to  King  fames. 


"What  a  proof  of  patience 
is  displayed  in  the  story  told 
of  Anaxarchus,  who,  when 
questioned  under  torture,  bit 
out  his  own  tongue  (the  only 
hope  of  information)  and  spat 
it  into  the  face  of  the  tyrant." 
—  De  Augment  is. 


"  Poetry  is  feigned  history." 
—  Advancement  of  Learning. 


"  Some  books  are  to  be 
tasted,  others  to  be  swallowed, 
and  some  few  to  be  chewed 
and  digested."  —  Essay  of 
Studies. 

"  To  be  like  a  child  follow- 
ing a  bird,  which,  when  he  is 
nearest,  flyeth  away  and  'light- 
eth  a  little  before :  and  then 
the  child  after  it  again."  —  Let- 
ter to  Greville. 


1  Professor  Nichol  refers  to  this  extraordinary  parallelism  in  his 
Biography  of  Bacon,  showing  by  date  that  Bacon  could  not  have 
copied  from  "  Shake-speare,"  nor  "  Shake-speare  "  from  Bacon.  The 
sentence  from  Bacon  is  found  in  a  private  letter,  written  in  1595.  but 
not  made  public  till  1657.  The  production  of  '  Coriolanus  '  is  as- 
signed to  a  date  not  earlier  than  1610.  The  play  was  first  printed  in  1623. 


62 


Bacon  vs.  Shakspere. 


"  I  do  much  wonder  that  one 
man,  seeing  how  much  an- 
other man  is  a  fool  when  he 
dedicates  his  behaviors  to  love, 
will,  after  he  has  laughed  at 
such  shallow  follies  in  others, 
become  the  argument  of  his 
own  scorn  by  falling  in  love." 
—  Much  Ado  About  Nothing, 
II.  3- 


"  Amongst  all  the  great  and 
worthy  persons  whereof  the 
memory  remaineth,  there  is  not 
one  that  hath  been  transported 
to  the  mad  degree  of  love ; 
which  shows  that  great  spirits 
and  great  business  do  keep  out 
this  weak  passion."  —  Essay 
of  Love. 


"  Sil.    Do  you  change  color  ? 
Val.  Give  him  leave,  madam ; 
he  is  a  kind  of  chame- 
leon." 
Two  Gentlemen  of  Verona, 
II.  4- 

"  King.     How  fares  our  cousin 

Hamlet? 

Hamlet.    Excellent,   i'  faith ; 

of  the  chameleon's 

dish  ;  I  eat  the  air." 

Hamlet,  III.  2. 


"If  he  be  laid  upon  green, 
the  green  predominates ;  if 
upon  yellow,  the  yellow ;  laid 
upon  black,  he  looketh  all 
black.  Some  that  have  kept 
chameleons  a  whole  year  to- 
gether could  never  perceive 
that  they  fed  upon  anything  but 
air."  —  Syl.  Syl. 


"  The   moon   sleeps  with  En-        "  The  moon  of  her  own  ac- 

dymion."  cord  came  to  Endymion  as  he 

Merchant  of  Venice,  V.  1.     was  asleep."  —  De  Augmentis. 


"  So  we  grew  together, 
Like  to  a  double  cherry." 
Midsummer  Night's  Dream, 
III.  2. 


"  There  is  a  cherry-tree  that 
hath  double  blossoms."  —  Syl. 
Syl. 


"  Have  you  a  daughter? 
Let  her  not  walk  i'  th'  sun.' 
Hamlet,  II.  2. 


"  Aristotle  dogmatically  as- 
signed the  cause  of  generation 
to  the  sun."  —  Novum  Or- 
ganum. 


Parallelisms. 


63 


Of  Julius  Caesar  : 

"  The  foremost  man  of  all 
this  world." 

Julius  Caesar,  IV.  3. 

"  The  noblest  man 
That  ever  lived." — Ibid.,  III.  1. 

"  I  am  constant  as  the  north- 
ern star, 

Of  whose  true  fixed  and  rest- 
ing quality 

There  is  no  fellow  in  the  firma- 
ment. 

The  skies  are  painted  with  un- 
number'd  sparks; 

They  are  all  fire,  and  every 
one  doth  shine ; 

But  there  's  but  one  in  all  doth 
hold  his  place. 

So  in  the  world  ;  't  is  furnished 
well  with  men, 

And  men  are  flesh  and  blood, 
and  apprehensive ; 

But  in  the  number  I  do  know 
but  one 

That,  unassailable,  holds  on 
his  rank, 

Unshaked  of  motion."  —  Ibid. 

"  When  we  were  boys, 
Who  would  believe  that  there 

were  mountaineers 
Dew-lapped  like   bulls,   whose 
throats  had  hanging  at  'em 
Wallets  of  flesh  ?  " 

Tempest,  III.  3. 

"  Idle  weeds  that  grow 
In  our  sustaining  corn." 

King  Lear,  IV.  4. 


"  The  most  excellent  spirit, 
his  ambition  reserved,  of  the 
world."  —  Imago  Civilis  Julii 
CcBsaris. 

"  A  man  of  a  great  and  noble 
soul."  —  Ibid. 

"  He  [Julius  Caesar]  referred 
all  things  to  himself,  and  was 
the  truest  centre  of  his  own 
actions.  —  Ibid. 


"  The  people  that  dwell  at 
the  foot  of  snow  mountains, 
or  otherwise  upon  the  ascent, 
especially  the  women,  by  drink- 
ing snow-water,  have  great  bags 
hanging  under  their  throats." 
—  Natural  History. 

"  There  be  certain  corn- 
flowers which  come  seldom  or 
never  in  other  places  unless 
they  be  set,  but  only  amongst 
corn."  —  Ibid. 


64 


Bacon  vs.  Shakspere. 


"  111  mayst  thou  thrive,  if  thou 
grant  any  grace." 

Richard II. ,  V.  3. 

"  What !    wouldst    thou    have 

a    serpent     sting     thee 

twice  ? " 

Merchant  of  Venice,  IV.  I. 

"  Go  thou,  and,  like  an  execu- 
tioner, 
Cut  off  the  head  of  too-fast- 
growing  sprays, 
That  look  too   lofty  in  our 
commonwealth." 

Richard II,  III.  4. 


"  Bir.  By  Jove,  I  always 
took  three  threes 
for  nine. 
Cost.  O  Lord,  sir,  it  were 
pity  you  should  get 
your  living  by 
reckoning,  sir." 
Love's  Labor  :s  Lost,  V.  2. 


'•He  who  shows  mercy  to  his 
enemy  denies  it  to  himself."  — 
Advancement  of  Learning. 


"  Periander,  being  coun- 
selled with  how  to  preserve  a 
tyranny  newly  usurped,  went 
into  his  garden  and  topped  all 
the  highest  flowers,  signifying 
that  it  consists  in  the  cutting 
off  and  keeping  low  of  the  no- 
bility and  grandees."  —  Ibid., 
Book  II. 

"  Philip  of  Macedon,  when 
he  would  needs  overrule  and 
put  down  an  excellent  musician 
in  an  argument  touching  music, 
was  well  answered  by  him 
again.  "  God  forbid,  sir,"  saith 
he,  "  that  your  fortune  should 
be  so  bad  as  to  know  these 
things  better  than  I."  —  Ibid., 
Book  VII. 


"  It  was  to  show  my  skill,  "  I   am  of  his  opinion  that 

That    more  for  praise  than  said    pleasantly   that    it    is    a 

purpose  meant  to  kill.  shame  to  him  that  is  a  suitor 

And,  out  of    question,  so  it  to  the  mistress  to  make  love  to 

is  sometimes  ;  the    waiting   woman."  1  —  The 

Glory  grows   guilty   of    de-  Apology. 

tested  crimes, 

1  It  is  every  one's  duty,  Bacon  often  said,  to  cultivate  virtue,  not  for 
fame  or  praise,  but  for  virtue's  own  sake.  He  makes  a  note  of  this  in 
the  Promus,  where  he  calls  praise  the  handmaid  (waiting  woman), 
and  virtue  the  mistress.  The  two  forms  of  expression,  quoted  above, 
constitute  a  binary  star. 


Parallelisms. 


65 


When  for  fame's  sake,   for 
praise,  an  outward  part, 

We  bend  to  that  the  work- 
ing of  the  heart. 

And  I,  for  praise  alone,  now 
seek  to  spill 

The  poor  deer's  blood,  that 
my  heart  means  no  ill." 
Love's  Labor  \r  Lost,  IV.  1. 

"  But  sweetest  things  turn  sour-         "  The  best  things  are  in  their 
est  by  their  deeds ;  corruption  the  worst ;  the  sweet- 

Lilies   that   fester   smell  far     est   wine    makes   the  sharpest 


worse  than  weeds." 

Sonnet  XCIV. 

"  This   is   th'  imposthume   of 

much  wealth  and  peace, 

That    inward    breaks,    and 

shows  no  cause  without 

Why  the  man  dies." 

Hamlet,  IV.  4. 

"  I    am  never  weary  when   I 
hear  sweet  music. 


vinegar."  —  Charge       against 
Robert,  Earl  of  Somerset. 

"  He  that  turneth  the  humors 
back  and  maketh  the  wound 
bleed  inwards  endangereth  ma- 
lign ulcers  and  pernicious  im- 
posthumations."  —  Essay  of 
Seditions. 

"  Some  noises  help  sleep,  as 
—  soft  singing;  the  cause  is, 


The  reason   is,  your  spirits     they  move  in  the  spirit  a  gentle 


attention . ' ' —  Natural  History. 

"  He  came  with  such  a  sea 
of  multitude  upon  Italy."  — 
Apothegm,  No.  242. 


are  attentive." 
Merchant  of  Venice,  V.  1. 

"  To  take  arms  against  a  sea 
of  troubles, 
And,      by      opposing,     end 
them."  1 

Hamlet,  III.  4. 

1  This  singular  metaphor  has  caused  commentators  great  perplex- 
ity. The  sight  of  a  man  advancing  against  ocean  waves  with  a  sword 
or  needle  gun  would  not  be,  it  must  be  confessed,  an  edifying  spec- 
tacle. Pope,  therefore,  proposed  to  read  a  siege  of  troubles  ;  Forest 
so  rendered  it  on  the  stage.  Another  commentator  preferred  an 
assail  of  troubles.  It  requires,  however,  but  a  glance  at  Bacon's  writ- 
ings, in  which  the  word  sea  is  used  over  and  over  again  for  host  or 
multitude,  to  redeem  the  passage.  Bacon  evidently  adopted  it  from 
the  Greek,  kcikwv  ireKayos.  5 


66 


Bacon  vs.  Shakspere. 


"  Sense  sure  you  have, 
Else  could  you  not  have  mo- 
tion."1 

Hamlet,  III.  4. 
[So    in    the    quarto,     1604; 
omitted  in  the  folio,  1623.] 

"  There    's    a     divinity     that 
shapes  our  ends." 

Ibid. 

"  Advantage  is  a  better  soldier 
than  rashness." 

Henry  K,  III.  6. 


'•  Some  of  the  ancient  philos- 
ophers could  not  conceive  how 
there  can  be  voluntary  motion 
without  sense."  —  De  Aug- 
mentis. 

"  I  cannot  forget  that  the 
poet  Martial  saith,  '  What  di- 
vinity there  is  in  chance  ! '  "  2  — 
Letter  to  King  James. 

"  If  time  give  his  Majesty 
the  advantage,  what  need  pre- 
cipitation to  extreme  reme- 
dies ? "  —  Letter  to  Villiers. 


"But  this  work,  shining  in 
itself,  needs  no  taper."  — 
Amendment  of  Laws. 


"  With  taper  light 
To  seek  the  beauteous  eye 

of  heaven  to  garnish, 
Is  wasteful     and     ridiculous 
excess." 

King  John,  IV.  2. 

1  The  commentators  can  make  nothing  of  these  lines  also.  One 
of  them  suggests  that  for  "motion"  we  substitute  notion ;  another, 
emotion.  Others  still  contend  that  the  word  "  sense  "  must  be  under- 
stood to  mean  sensation  or  sensibility.  Dr.  Ingleby  was  certain  that 
Hamlet  refers  to  the  Queen's  wanton  impulse.  As  to  the  omission 
in  the  folio,  not  even  the  most  daring  commentator  has  ventured  to 
offer  a  remark.  In  Bacon's  prose,  however,  we  find  not  only  an  ex- 
planation of  the  passage  in  the  quarto,  but  the  reason  why  it  was 
excluded  from  the  folio.  The  '  Advancement  of  Learning  '  was  pub- 
lished in  1605,  the  year  after  the  quarto,  but  it  contains  no  repudiation 
of  the  ancient  doctrine  that  everything  which  has  motion  has  sense. 
Indeed,  Bacon  had  a  lingering  opinion  that  the  doctrine  is  true,  even 
as  applied  to  the  planets  in  the  influence  which  they  were  supposed  to 
exercise  over  the  affairs  of  men.  But  in  1623  he  published  a  new 
edition  of  the  '  Advancement '  under  the  title  of  De  Augmentis  Scien- 
tiarum,  and  therein  expressly  declared  that  the  doctrine  is  untrue  ; 
that  there  is  motion  in  inanimate  bodies  without  sense,  but  with  what 
he  called  a  kind  of  perception.  The  Shake-speare  folio  came  out  in 
the  same  year,  and  the  passage  in  question,  no  longer  harmonizing 
with  the  author's  views,  dropped  out. 

2  "  O  quantum  est  casibus  ingenium." 


Parallelisms. 


67 


"  Brother,  you  have  a  vice  of 
mercy  in  you, 
Which  better  fits  a  lion  than 

a  man." 
Troilus  and  Cressida,  V.  3. 

"  To  be  wise  and  love  exceeds 
man's  might;  that  dwells 
with  gods  above." 

Ibid.,  III.  2. 

"  Court    holy-water   in   a   dry 
house  is  better  than  this 
rain-water  out  o'  door." 
King  Lear,  III.  2  [1606]. 


"  Like  bright  metal  on  a  sullen 
ground, 


"  For  of  lions  it  is  a  received 
belief  that  their  fury  ceaseth 
toward  anything  that  yieldeth 
and  prostrateth  itself."  1  —  Of 
Charity. 

"  It  is  impossible  to  love  and 
be  wise."  —  Essay  of  Love. 


"He  was  no  brewer  of  holy 
water  in  court."     [i592-] 

"  Your  lordship  is  no  dealer 
of  holy  water,  but  noble  and 
real."  —  Letter  to  Salisbury 
[1607]. 

"  We  see  in  needle-works 
and    embroideries   it   is   more 


My    reformation,    glittering     pleasing  to  have  a  lively  work 


o'er  my  fault, 
Shall  show  more  goodly,  and 

attract  more  eyes, 
Than   that    which   hath    no 

foil  to  set  it  off." 

1  Henry  IV.,  I.  2. 

"  I  know  he  would  not  be 
a  wolf, 


upon  a  sad  and  solemn  ground 
than  to  have  a  dark  and  melan- 
choly work  upon  a  lightsome 
ground."  —  Essay  of  Adver- 
sity. 


"Cato,  the  censor,  said  that 
the  Romans  were  like  sheep." 
But  that  he  sees  the  Romans     — Advancement  of  Learning. 
are  but  sheep." 

Ju litis  Ccesar,  I.  3. 

"  Being  seldom  seen,  I  could 
not  stir 
But,  like  a  comet,  I  was  won- 
dered at." 

1  Henry  IV,  III.  2. 

1  In  this  instance,  as  in  many  others,  it  requires  Bacon's  prose  to 
explain  "  Shake-speare's  "  poetry. 

2  This  conception  of  wonder,  as  a  state  of  mind  produced  by  any- 
thing (whether  extraordinary  or  not)  that  is  rare,  was  a  favorite  one 


"  Wonder  is  the  child  of  rar- 
ity." 2  —  Val.  Ter. 


68 


Bacon  vs.  Shaksperc. 


"  Love 
Will  creep  in  service  where 
it  cannot  go." 
Two  Gentlemen  of  Verona, 
IV.  2. 


O 


of 


great   corrector 

mous  times, 
Shaker  of   o'er-rank   states, 

thou  grand  decider 
Of  dusty  and  old  titles,  that 

heal'st  with  blood 
The  earth  when  she  is  sick 

and  cur'st  the  world 
0'  the  pleurisy  of  people."  x 
Two  AToble  Kinsmen,  V.  I. 

"  The  cankers  of  a  calm  world 
and  a  long  peace." 

I  Henry  IV.,  IV.  2. 


"  Love  must  creep  where  it 
cannot  go."  —  Letter  to  King 
James. 


"  I  account  no  state  flourish- 
ing but  that  which  hath  neither 
civil  wars  nor  too  long  peace. 


"  States  corrupted  through 
wealth  and  too  great  length  of 
peace." — Letter  to  the  Earl 
of  Rutland. 


with  Bacon.  We  find  it  repeatedly  in  his  prose  works.  We  find  it 
also  in  many  of  the  plays.  Henry  IV.  tells  his  son  to  keep  himself  as 
much  as  possible  out  of  the  people's  sight  in  order  that,  whenever  he 
is  seen,  he  may  excite  greater  applause.  It  is,  at  least,  remarkable 
that  a  causal  relation  of  so  subtle  a  nature  should  occur  over  and  over 
again  in  both  sets  of  works. 

1  "  I  believe  that  Shakespeare  has  expressed  the  true  philosophy 
of  war  [!]  in  those  magnificent  verses  in  the  '  Two  Noble  Kinsmen,' 
which  are  as  unlike  Beaumont  and  Fletcher  as  Michael  Angelo's  char- 
coal head  on  the  wall  of  Farnesia  is  unlike  Raphael." — James  Ritssell 
Lowell. 

"  We  cannot  escape  from  a  certain  truth  in  Shakespeare's  view  of 
war  that  it  is  the  great  corrector  of  enormous  times."  —  Pearson's  Na- 
tional Life  and  Character,  p.  140. 

We  must  add  that  the  sentiment  itself,  pardonable  perhaps  in  the 
seventeenth  century  but  not  in  this,  is  as  barbarous  as  it  is  illogical. 
Force  has  no  moral  quality.  As  well  expect  an  earthquake  to  disturb 
a  theorem  in  Euclid,  or  the  guns  of  an  iron-clad  to  shake  the  rule  of 
three. 


Parallelisms. 


69 


"  To  be  or  not  to  be,  that  is        "  To  be  or  not  to  be,  that  is 
the  question."  the     alternative."  —  Parmeni- 

Hamlet,  III.  1.     des.1     [Specially     commended 
by  Bacon.] 


"  Boult.  I  warrant  you,  mis- 
tress, thunder  shall  not  so 
awake  the  beds  of  eels."  — 
Pericles,  IV.  2. 

"  As  the  mournful  crocodile 
With  sorrow  snares  relenting 
passengers." 

2  Henry  VI.,  III.  2. 

"  Soothsayer  ; 
Therefore,  O  Antony,  stay  not 

by  his  side : 
Thy  daemon,  that  's  thy  spirit 

which  keeps  thee,  is 
Noble,   courageous,   high,  un- 

matchable, 
Where  Caesar  is  not;  but  near 

him  thy  angel 
Becomes    a    Fear,    as     being 

overpowered :  therefore, 
Make   space   enough  between 

you." 
Antony  and  Cleopatra,  V.  2. 


1  Not  translated  from  the  original  Greek  into  any  other  language 
till  more  than  two  hundred  years  after  '  Hamlet '  was  written. 

We  give  the  original,  and  also  a  Latin  version  published  at  Amster- 
dam in  1835 :  — 

"  Ovtws  %\  ird/j-Trav  ireAevai  XP*0""  etrrlv  o\>x'i" 
"  Ergo  vel  esse  omnino  vel  non  esse  necesse  est." 

2  The  '  Natural  History '  was  not  printed  till  eleven  years  after 
Shakspere's  death.  It  is  clear,  then,  that  Shakspere  did  not 
take   the  story  from  Bacon.      It  is  almost  equally  clear  that  Bacon 


"  Upon  the  noise  of  thunder 
.  .  .  fishes  are  thought  to  be 
frayed  [terrified]."  —  Natural 
History. 

"  It  is  the  wisdom  of  croco- 
diles, that  shed  tears  when 
they  would  devour."  —  Essay 
of  Wisdom. 

"  There  was  an  Egyptian 
soothsayer  that  made  Antonius 
believe  that  his  genius,  which 
otherwise  was  brave  and  con- 
fident, was,  in  the  presence 
of  Octavius  Caesar,  poor  and 
cowardly ;  and  therefore  he 
advised  him  to  absent  himself 
as  much  as  he  could,  and  re- 
move far  from  him."2  —  ATat- 
ural  History. 


yo 


Bacon  vs.  Shakspere. 


"  It  is  so  very  very  late  "It    is    not    now    late    but 

That  we  may  call  it  early."        early."  —  Essay  of  Death. 
Ro?neo  and  Juliet,  III.  4. 


It  may  be  interesting,  also,  to  compare  some  of  the 
entries  in  Bacon's  scrap-book  with  passages  in  the 
plays,  as  follows  :  — 


FROM    "  SHAKE-SPEARE." 

"  One  fire  drives  out  one  fire ; 
one  nail,  one  nail." 

Coriolanus,  IV.  7. 

"  Losers  will  have  leave 
To  ease  their  stomachs  with 
their  bitter  tongues." 
Titus  Andronicus,  III.  1. 

"  Happy  man  be  his  dole." 

Merry  Wives,  III.  4. 

"  Pardon  is  still  the    nurse  of 
second  woe." 
Measure  for  Measure,  II.  1. 

"  Of  sufferance  comes  ease." 
2  Henry  IV.,  V.  4. 

"  Call  me  not  fool,  till  heaven 
hath  sent  me  fortune." 
As  You  Like  It,  II.  7. 

u  Thou  bear'st  thy  heavy  riches 

but  a  journey." 
Measure  for  Measure,  III .  1. 


FROM   BACONS    PROMUS. 

"  To  drive  out  a  nail  with  a 
nail." 


"  Always  let  losers  have  their 
words." 


"  Happy  man,  happy  dole." 

"  He  that  pardons  his  ene- 
mies, the  amner  [bailiff]  shall 
have  his  goods." 

"  Of  sufferance  cometh 
ease." 

"  God  sendeth  fortune  to 
fools." 


"  Riches,    the    baggage    of 
virtue." 


did  not  take  it  from  "  Shake-speare,"  for  he  adds  a  particular  which 
is  not  in  the  play.  viz. :  "  The  soothsayer  was  thought  to  be  suborned 
by  Cleopatra  to  make  Antony  live  in  Egypt  and  other  places  remote 
from  Rome." 


Parallelisms. 


7* 


"  So  the  maid  that  stood  in        "  He   had    rather  have    his 
the  way  for  my  wish  shall  show     will  than  his  wish." 
me  the  way  to  my  will." 

Henry  V.,  V.  2. 

"  Seldom  cometh  the  better." 
Richard  III.,  II.  2. 

"  Frost  itself  as  actively  doth 
burn." 

Hamlet,  III.  4. 

"  The  dissembler  is  a  slave." 
Pericles,  I.  1. 

"  A  fool's  bolt  is  soon  shot." 

Henry  V.,  III.  7. 

"  Deceive     more     slyly      than 
Ulysses  could.' 

3  Henry  VI.,  III.  2. 

"  The  mild    glance  which  sly 
Ulysses  lent." 

Lucre  ce. 

"  Give  sorrow  leave  awhile  to 
tutor  me." 

Richard  II.,  IV.  1. 

"  For  loan  oft  loses  both  itself 
and  friend." 

Hamlet^  I.  3. 


"  Seldom  cometh  the  better." 

"  Frzgus    adurit.v      [Frost 
burns.] 

"  He  who  dissembles  is  not 
free." 

"  A  fool's  bolt  is  soon  shot." 
"  Ulysses,  sly  in  speech."  1 


"  Our  sorrows  are  our  school- 
masters." 

"  He  who  lends  to  a  friend 
loses  double." 


"  I  '11  devil-porter  it  no  further."        "  He  is  the  devil's  porter  who 
Macbeth,  II.  3.     does    more    than   what  is  re- 
quired of  him." 

1  Dr.  Theobald  calls  attention  to  the  fact  that  this  entry  in  the 
Promus  is  the  sole  instance  in  Bacon's  prose  works  in  which  Ulysses 
is  spoken  of  as  sly,  though  in  "  Shake-speare  "  he  is  never  alluded  to 
otherwise.  The  entry  seems  to  have  been  made  with  exclusive  refer- 
ence to  dramatic  use. 


72 


Bacon  vs.  Shakspere. 


"  Goodness,  growing  to  a  pleu- 
risy, 
Dies  in  his  own  too  much." 
Hamlet,  IV.  7. 

"All 's  well  that  ends  well." 
A  IPs  Well  that  Ends  Well, 
IV.  4. 
"  Pride  must  have  a  fall." 

Richard  II.,  IV.  5. 

"  Love  moderately ;  long  love 
doth  so." 
Romeo  and  "Juliet,  II.  6. 

"  Two,  together  weeping,  make 
one  woe." 

Richard  II.,  V.  I. 

"  Every  Jack  became  a  gentle- 
man." 

Richard  III.,  I.  3. 

"  Your  words  and  your  perform- 
ances are  no  kin." 

Othello,  IV.  2. 

"  The    latter   end    of    a    fray         "  Better  come  to  the  ending 

and  the  beginning  of  a  of  a  feast  than  to  the  beginning 

feast."  of  a  fray." 
I  Henry  IV.,  IV.  2. 

"  Good  wine  needs  no  bush."  "  Good  wine  needs  no  bush." 

As  You  Like  It. 

"Thy  nature,  "In    ways,    commonly    the 

It  is  too  full  o'  the  milk  of    nearest  is  the  foulest." 

human  kindness 
To  catch  the  nearest  way." 
Macbeth,  I.  4. 

1  It  should  be  borne  in  mind  that  many  words,  phrases,  and  senti- 
ments, now  familiar  to  us,  have  been  made  so  by  "  Shake-speare." 
Their  simultaneous  admission  into  Bacon's  memorandum-book  suffi- 
ciently attests  the  fact  that  they  were  then  new  to  English  readers. 
The  above  entry  is  a  mere  paraphrase  of  a  biblical  proverb. 


"So  good  that  he  is  good  for 
nothing." 


"  All  is  well  that  ends  well." 


"Pride  will  have  a  fall."1 

"  Love  me  little,   love  me 
long." 

"  Make  not  two  sorrows  of 
one." 

"Every    jack    would    be    a 
lord." 


"  Saying  and  doing  are  two 
things." 


Parallelisms,  73 

"  The  inaudible  and  noiseless        "  The    gods    have    woollen 
foot  of  time."  feet." 

All's  Well,  V.  3. 

"The  ripest  mulberry."  "  Riper  than  a  mulberry." 

Coriolanus,  III.  2. 

"  Do  we  must  what  force  will        "  They  that  are  bound  must 
have  us  do."  obey." 

Richard  I  I.,  III.  3. 

"  To  hazard  all  our  lives  in  one         "  You  are  in  the  same  ship." 
small  boat." 

1  Henry  VI.,  IV.  6. 

"  Let  him  not  know  't,  and  he  's        "  What   the   eye   seeth  not, 
not  robb'd  at  all."  the  heart  rueth  not." 

Othello,  III.  3. 

"  Must  bend  his  body,         "  A   beck  is  as  good   as  a 
If  Caesar  carelessly  but  nod     dieu  vous  garde." 
on  him." 

Julius  Ccesar,  I.  2. 

"  Dieu  vous  garde,  monsieur." 
Twelfth  Night,  III.  1. 

"  Your  bait  of  falsehood  takes        "  Tell  a  lie  to  know  a  truth." 
this  carp  of  truth." 

Hamlet,  I.  2. 

"  The  strings  of  life  "  At       length      the      string 

Began  to  crack."  cracks." 

Lear,  V.  3. 

"  Thou  hast  quarrelled  with  a        "A   cough    cannot  hide   it- 
man  for  coughing  in  the     self." 
street." 
Romeo  and  Juliet,  III.  1 . 

"  Ay,  sir,  but  '  while  the  grass         "  While  the  grass  grows,  the 
grows '  —  the  proverb  is  horse  starveth." 

something  musty." 

Hamlet,  III.  2. 


74  Bacon  vs.  SJiakspere. 

"  Out  of  heaven's  benedic-         "  Out  of  God's  blessing  into 
tion  the  warm  sun." 

To  the  warm  sun." 

Lear,  II.  2. 

"  The  world  on  wheels."  "  The  world  runs  on  wheels." 

Two  Gentlemen  of  Verona, 
III.  1. 

"  Thought  is  free."  "  Thought  is  free." 

Tempest,  III.  2. 

"  To  seek  the  beauteous  eye  of        "  To  help  the  sun  with  lan- 
heaven  to  garnish."  terns." 
King  John,  IV.  2. 

"  You  go  not,  till  I  set  you  up        "  There    is  no   better  glass 
a  glass  than  an  old  friend." 

Where  you  may  see  the  in- 
most part  of  you." 

Hamlet,  III.  4. 

"  You  shall  not  gauge  me  "  Evening's   speech   is  very 

By  what  we  do  to-night."  different  from  the  morning's." 

Merchant  of  Venice,  II.  2. 

"  Fortune  .  .  .  doth  ebb  and         "  Fortune  changes   like   the 
flow  like  the  sea,  being  gov-     moon." 
erned,   as   the   sea  is,  by  the 
moon." 

1  Henry  IV.,  I.  2. 

"  A  giving  hand,  though  foul,         "  Food  is  wholesome  which 
shall  have  fair  praise."       comes  from  a  dirty  hand." 
Love's  Labor  'j  Lost,  IV.  1. 

"  As  if  increase  of  appetite         "If  you   eat,    appetite   will 
had  grown  come." 

By  what  it  fed  on." 

Hamlet,  I.  2. 

"  If  the  cat  will  after  kind,         "  It  is  the  cat's  nature  and 
So  be  sure  will  Rosalind."         the  wench's  fault." 
As  You  Like  It,  III.  2. 


Parallelisms. 


75 


He  woo'd  in  haste  and  means  "He  that  resolves  in  haste 

to  wed  at  leisure.  repents  at  leisure." 
Taming  of  the  Shrew,  III.  2. 

"  I  am  quickly  ill,  and  well,  "A    woman   is  ill  whenever 

So  Antony  loves."  she  wishes,  and  whenever  she 

Antony  and  Cleopatra,  I.  3.  wishes,  she  is  well." 

;  I  am  giddy ;  ...   I  do  fear  "  When    one    good    follows 

That  I  shall  lose  distinction  another,  a  man  loses  his  bal- 

in  my  joys."  ance." 
Troilns  and  Cressida,  III.  2. 


"  Make  use  of  thy  salt  hours." 
Timon  of  Athens,  IV.  3. 

"  When   the   sea  is   calm,    all 
boats  alike 
Show  mastership  in  floating." 
Coriolanus,  IV.  1. 

"  Beggars  cannot  choose." 


"  Life  is  a  little  salt-cellar." 


"  Any  one  can  be  a  pilot  in 
fine  weather." 


Beggars     should     be     no 


Taming  of  the  Shrew,  Ind.     choosers." 


"  Teach  me  to  forget." 

Romeo  and  Juliet,  I.  1. 

"  Cres.   Well,  well. 
Tan.    '  Well,  well '  !  " 

Troilus  and  Cressida,  I.  2. 

"  That  is  all  one." 

Merry  Wives,  I.  1. 

"  Can  so  young  a  thorn  begin 
to  prick  ?  " 

Henry  VI.,  V.  5. 


"  The  art  of  forgetting." 
"  Well." » 

"  All  is  one." 

"  A  thorn  is  gentle  when  it 
is  young." 


1  "  The  peculiarity  of  the  use  of  this  word  consists  in  the  fact  that 
Shakespeare  uses  it  both  as  continuing  a  conversation  and  as  conclud- 
ing it ;  other  authors,  previous  and  contemporary,  in  the  first  manner 
only."  —  Mrs.  Pott's  Edition  of  the  Promus,  page  168. 


76 


Bacon  vs.  Shakspere. 


"  Coal  black  is  better  than  an- 
other hue, 
In  that  it  scorns  to  take  an- 
other hue." 
Titus  Andronicus,  IV.  2. 
"  Not  to  be  abed  after  mid- 
night is  to  be  up  betimes  ;  and 
diluculo  surgere,   thou   know- 
est."—  Twelfth  Night,  II.  3. 

"  Romeo. 
Good  morrow. 

What  early  tongue  so  sweet 
saluteth  me  ? 


"  Black  will  take   no   other 
hue." 


"  Diluculo 
brium  "  [sic]. 


surgere 


salu- 


Rome. 

Good  morrow. 

Sweet,  for  speech  in  the 
morning  [i.  e.  morning 
speech  is  to  be  noted  as 
sweet]. 

Early  rising. 


So  soon  to  bid  good  morrow 

to  thy  bed. 
Where  care  lodges,  sleep  will        Lodged  next. 

never  lie. 
There    golden     sleep     doth        Golden  sleep. 

reign. 
Thou  art  uproused  by  some        Uprouse."  2 

distemperature."  x 

Romeo  and  Juliet,  II.  3. 

The  foregoing  lists  might  be  extended  almost 
indefinitely  ;    but  enough  is  given  to   show  that  on 

1  The  above  disconnected  sentences  from  '  Romeo  and  Juliet '  are 
taken  from  within  a  space  of  eleven  consecutive  lines.  The  corre- 
sponding entries  in  the  Promus  were  also  made  substantially  at  one 
time  ;  they  are  found  very  near  together.  We  find  the  earliest  notice 
of  the  play  to  have  been  under  date  of  1597,  or  immediately  after  this 
curious  preliminary  study  for  a  part  of  it  was  recorded  by  Bacon  in 
his  private  memorandum  book.  It  seems  to  us  as  undeniable  as  any 
theorem  in  Euclid  that  the  writer  of  the  Promus  had  something  to  do 
with  the  composition  of  '  Romeo  and  Juliet.' 

'2  This  was  the  first  (private)  appearance  of  this  word  in  the  Eng- 
lish language  ;  its  second  (public)  appearance  was  two  or  three  years 
later  —  in  the  play. 


pgrizCowi  /awixr 


JbvkfaJh* 


ul  £&*, 


f-SS#. "Molitre./. 


Signatures  of  Francis  Bacon  and  Others. 


Parallelisms.  79 

these  two  minds  (if  there  were  two)  fell  the  light  of 
intelligence,  in  repeated  flashes,  at  the  same  exact 
angle.  The  cumulative  force  of  these  examples, 
taken  in  connection  with  the  solid  prejudice  against 
which,  in  some  instances,  they  break  in  vain,  re- 
minds us  of  the  charge  of  the  Old  Guard  at  Waterloo, 
the  "  irresistible  meeting  the  immovable."  1 

"  It  is  safe  to  say  that  no  such  list  can  be  produced  from  the 
writings  of  any  other  two  authors  of  that  age  or  of  any  age ; 
no  similarity  of  life,  genius,  or  studies  ever  produced  an  iden- 
tity like  this.  .  .  .  The  coincidences  are  not  merely  such  as 
might  be  attributed  to  the  style  and  usage  of  that  time ;  they 
extend  to  the  scope  of  thought,  the  particular  ideas,  the  modes 
of  thinking  and  feeling,  the  choice  of  metaphors,  the  illustrative 
imagery,  and  those  singular  peculiarities,  oddities,  and  quaint- 
nesses  of  expression  and  use  of  words  which  everywhere  and  at 
all  times  mark  and  distinguish  the  individual  writer."  — 
Holmes'  Authorship  of  Shakespeare. 

If  we  consider,  also,  the  difference  between  the  two  men  in 
birth,  education,  and  mode  of  life,  these  similarities  become,  on 
the  commonly  accepted  theory,  absolutely  inexplicable.  In 
any  view,  however,  they  are  so  extraordinary  that  John  Weiss 
(who  has  produced  the  ablest  argument  against  the  Baconian 
theory  we  have  ever  read)  is  compelled  to  admit  that  the  two 
authors  were  probably  close  companions  in  literary  work. 

"  Does  any  one  dare  to  say  that  Shakespeare  and  Bacon  did 
not  compare  notes  upon  many  subjects  ?  Many  of  the  reputed 
parallelisms  are  indirect  traces  of  such  an  intercourse.  —  Wit, 
Humor,  and  Shakespeare,  p.  261. 

"  When  we  come  to  internal  evidences,  afforded  by  a  com- 
parison of  what  Bacon  has  written  and  what  Shakespeare 
wrote,  some  quoted  coincidences  are  assuredly  very  striking. 
Enough  of  unimpeachable  force  has  been  got  together  to  dis- 
close a  really  remarkable  similarity  of  phrase,  of  metaphor,  of 

1  The  number  of  parallelisms  similar  to  the  above,  already  found 
in  these  two  sets  of  works,  exceeds  a  thousand. 


; 


80  Bacon  vs.  Shakspere. 

opinions,  and  of  inferred  attainments.  What  perhaps  affords 
the  nearest  approach  to  a  convincing  argument  for  a  common 
authorship,  is  the  use  of  the  same  out-of-the-way  quotations  and 
the  reproduction  of  precisely  the  same  errors."  —  The  [London] 
Standard,  May  I,  1888. 

"  Some  of  these  parallelisms  are  not  coincidences,  but  some- 
thing like  identities."  —  Appleton  Morgan. 

7.  Bacon's  love  of  flowers  perfumed  his  whole  life. 
It  was  to  him,  as  he  said,  "  the  purest  of  human 
pleasures."  Of  the  thirty-five  species  of  garden 
plants  mentioned  in  the  Plays,  he  enumerates  thirty- 
two  in  his  prose  works,  bending  over  them,  as  it 
were,  lovingly,  and,  like  the  dramatist,  noting  the 
seasons  in  which  they  bloom.  In  both  authors,  taste 
and  knowledge  go  hand  in  hand. 

This  point  will  bear  elaboration,  for  the  two  meth- 
ods of  treatment  seem  to  be  mutually  related,  like 
the  foliage  of  a  plant  and  the  exquisite  blossom. 
Bacon  says :  "  I  do  hold  it,  in  the  royal  ordering  of 
gardens,  there  ought  to  be  gardens  for  all  the  months 
of  the  year,  in  which  severally  things  of  beauty  may  be 
then  in  season  ;  "  and  with  this  end  in  view,  he  pro- 
ceeds to  classify  plants  according  to  their  periods  of 
blooming. 

"  Shake-speare,"  on  his  part,  introduces  to  us  a 
beautiful  shepherdess  distributing  flowers  among  her 
friends,  —  to  the  young,  the  flowers  of  spring;  to 
the  middle-aged,  those  of  summer;  while  the  flowers 
that  bloom  on  the  edge  of  winter  are  given  to  the 
old.  What  is  still  more  remarkable,  the  groupings 
in  both  are  substantially  the  same.  One  commen- 
tator has  even  proved  the  correctness  of  a  disputed 
reading  in  the  play  by  reference  to  the  correspond- 
ing passage  in  the  essay. 


Lists  of  Flowers.  81 

We  present  the  two  lists,  side  by  side,  for  compar- 
ison, as  follows :  — 


FROM   SHAKESPEARE. 

"  Now,  my  fair'st  friend, 
I  would  I  had  some  flowers  o' 

th'  spring,  that  might 
Become  your  time  of  day;  and 

yours ;  and  yours, 

daffodils, 
That  come  before  the  swallow 

dares,  and  take 
The    winds    of     March    with 

beauty;  violets,  dim, 
But  sweeter  than  the  lids  of 

Juno's  eyes, 
Or    Cytherea's    breath  ;    pale 

primroses, 
That  die   unmarried  ere  they 

can  behold 
Bright  Phoebus  in  his  strength, 

a  malady 
Most  incident  to  maids;  bold 

ox  lips  and 
The  crown  imperial;    lilies  of 

all  kinds, 
The  flower-de-luce  being  one. 

"  Sir,  the  year  growing  an- 
cient — 

Not  yet  on  summer's  death, 
nor  on  the  birth 

Of  trembling  winter  —  the  fair- 
est flowers  o'  th'  season 

Are  our  carnations  and 
streaked  gilliflower. 

Hot  lavender,  mint,  savory, 
marjoram ; 


FROM    BACON. 

"  There  followeth,  for  the  lat- 
ter part  of  January  and  Feb- 
ruary .  .  .  crocus  vernus,  both 
the  yellow  and  the  gray ;  Prim- 
roses, anemones,  the  early  tulip, 
the  hyacinthus  orientalis.  For 
March,  there  come  violets,  es- 
pecially the  single  blue,  which 
are  the  earliest  ;  the  yellow 
daffodil,  the  daisy.  In  April, 
follow  the  double  white  violet, 
the  wall-flower,  the  stock  gilli- 
flower, the  cowslip,  flower-de- 
luces,  and  lilies  of  all  natures; 
rosemary-flowers,  the  tulip, 
the  double  peony,  the  pale 
daffodil,  the  French  honey- 
suckle." 


"In  May  and  June,  come 
pinks  of  all  sorts,  specially 
the  blush-pink  ;  roses  of  all 
kinds,  except  the  musk,  which 
comes  later;  honeysuckles,  the 
French  marigold,  flor-Africa- 
nus,  vine  flowers,  lavender  in 
flowers,  the  sweet  satyrian.  In 
July,  come  gilliflowers  of  all 
varieties,  musk-roses." 


82  Bacon  vs.  Shakspere. 

The  marigold,  that  goes  to  bed 

with  th'  sun, 
And  with  him  rises,  weeping ; 

these  are  flowers 
Of  middle  summer,  and  I  think 

they  're  given 
To  men  of  middle  age. 

"  Reverend  sirs,  "  For   December  and  Janu- 
For  you  there  's  rosemary  and  ary  and  the  latter  part  of  No- 
rue  ;  these  keep  vember,  you   must  take   such 
Seeming  and  savor  all  the  win-  things  as  are  green  all  winter : 
ter  long."  holly,  ivy,  rosemary,  lavender, 
Winter's  Tale,  IV.  3.  periwinkle,   and   sweet  marjo- 
ram." *  —  Essay  on  Gardens. 

The  essay  was  first  printed  in  1625,  nine  years  after  Shak- 
spere's  death.  It  seems  reasonable  to  conclude  that  Bacon 
[who  had  made  a  study  of  gardens  all  his  life],  either  borrowed 
from  Shakspere  or  wrote  the  play. 

"  It  is  not  probable  that  Bacon  would  have  anything  to  learn 
of  William  Shakespeare  concerning  the  science  of  gardening." 
—  Spedding. 

VIII.  In  1867  there  was  discovered  in  a  private 
library  in  London  a  box  of  old  papers,  among 
which  were  some  manuscripts  of  Francis  Bacon, 
bound  together  in  the  form  of  a  volume.  In  the 
table  of  contents  on  the  title-page,  among  the  names 
of  other  compositions  known  to  be  Bacon's,  but  not 
in  his  handwriting,  appear  those  of  two  of  the 
"  Shake-speare  "  plays,  —  Richard  II.  and  Richard 
III.,  —  though  the  plays  themselves  have  been  ab- 
stracted from   the  book.2     Judge   Holmes   adds  the 

1  Trees  and  fruits  only  omitted. 

2  In  the  table  of  contents  we  find,  also,  the  title  of  one  of  Nash's 
plays,  '  The  Isle  of  Dogs,'  never  published.  But  Nash  did  not  write 
the  whole  of  this  play.     He  complained  that  several  scenes  in  it  had 


Northumberland  MSS.  83 

following  piece  of  information  in  regard  to  this 
discovery:  — 

"  The  blank  space  at  the  side  and  between  the  titles  is 
scribbled  all  over  with  various  words,  letters,  phrases,  and 
scraps  of  verse  in  English  and  Latin,  as  if  the  copyist  were 
merely  trying  his  pen,  and  writing  down  whatever  first  came 
into  his  head.  Among  these  scribblings,  beside  the  name  of 
Francis  Bacon  several  times,  the  name  of  William  Shakespeare 
is  written  eight  or  nine  times  over." 

It  is  a  singular  coincidence  that  the  extraordinary 
word,  "  honorificabilitudino,"  found  here,  occurs  with 
a  slight  change  of  ending  in  '  Love's  Labor  's  Lost.' 
Also,  the  line,  "  revealing  day  through  every  cranny 
peeps,"  from  the  "  Shake-speare  "  poem,  '  Lucrece,' 
appears  among  the  scribblings.1 

The  best  experts  assign  the  date  of  these  pen 
performances,  in  which  the  names  of  Bacon  and 
Shakespeare  flowed  so  naturally,  and,  on  the  part 
of  the  writer,  so  unconsciously  and  spontaneously,  to 
the  age  of  Elizabeth. 

"  The  only  place  in  the  world  where  we  may  be  sure  the 
manuscript  of  a  "  Shake-speare  "  play  once  existed  is  Bacon's 
portfolio."  —  R.  M.  Theobald. 

been  interpolated  by  another.  The  presence  of  the  MS.  among 
Bacon's  papers  sufficiently  indicates  whose  hand  had  supplemented 
the  author's.  Furthermore,  following  the  title  of  this  play,  appears 
the  abbreviated  word,  "frmnt"  (fragment),  as  though  tha  interpolated 
part  only  had  been  included  in  the  collection. 

1  The  line  in  '  Lucrece  '  is  as  follows  :  — 

"  Revealing  day  through  every  cranny  spies." 

As  this  does  not  end  so  happily  as  the  line  in  the  scribblings,  it 
has  been  suggested  that  the  latter  may  represent  the  form  as  first 
presented  to  the  mind  of  the  poet,  if  not  so  written,  but  subsequently 
changed  under  the  exigency  of  rhyme. 


Mr.  Francis  Bacon 

• 

of  tribute  or  giving  what  is  due. 

The  Praise  of  the  worthiest  Virtue 

The  Praise  of  the  worthiest  Affection 

The  Praise  of  the  worthiest  Power 

Anthony 

The  Praise  of  the  worthiest  Person 

Mr.  Francis 

Multis  annis  jam  transactis 

Francis  Bacon 
Francis 

Nulla  fides  est  in  pact  is, 
Mell  in  ore,  verba  lactis ; 

Earl  of  Arundell's  letter  to  the  Queen 

Fell  in  corde,fraus  infactis. 

Speeches  for  my  lord  of  Essex  at  the  tilt. 

A  Speech  for  my  lord  of  Sussex  tilt. 

honorificabilitudino 

Leicester's  Commonwealth,  Incerto  auth. 

Orations  at  Gray's  Inn  Revels 

Bacon 

By  Mr.  Francis  Bacon 

Essays  by  the  same  author 

William  Shakespeare 

Baco 

Richard  the  Second.     Shakespeare 

Richard  the  Third 

Bacon 

Asmund  and  Cornelia 

Asmund  and  Cornelia 

Isle  of  Dogs,  frmnt. 

speare         revealing 

day  through 

by  Thomas  Nash. 

every  cranny 

William  Shakespeare 

peeps 

*                   Sh         hakespeare 

Shak 

William  Shakespeare 

Sh         Shak 

William  Shakespeare 

Shakespeare 
willi        william 

Key  to  Cover  of  Northumberland  MSS. 


r 


Concealed  Poet.  85 

IX.  At  the  death  of  Queen  Elizabeth,  John  Davies, 
the  poet  and  courtier,  went  to  Scotland  to  meet 
James  I.  To  him,  while  on  the  journey  northward, 
Bacon  addressed  a  letter,  asking  kind  intercession  in 
his  behalf  with  the  king,  and  expressing  the  hope,  in 
closing,  that  he  (Davies)  would  be  "  good  to  con- 
cealed poets."  This  expression  indicates  that  Ba- 
con's acknowledged  writings  do  not  reveal  the  whole 
man.1  Something  in  him  of  a  poetic  nature  was 
unquestionably  hid  from  the  mass  of  his  contempo- 
raries. John  Aubrey,  Milton's  friend,  who  was  born 
the  year  after  Bacon's  death,  and  who  derived  his 
knowledge  of  Bacon  from  those  who  knew  the  chan- 
cellor personally,  states  that  "  his  lordship  was  a 
good  poet,  but  concealed."2 

We  find  a  similar  hint  in  Florio's  '  World  of  Words,' 
published  in  1598.  Florio  was  a  learned  Italian,  and 
a  familiar  figure  in  the  literary  and  court  circles  of 
London.  He  is  now  known  to  fame  as  translator  of 
Montaigne's  Essays  into  English.  That  he  was  on 
terms  of  intimacy  with  Bacon  is  now  a  known  fact, 
for  in  some  of  the  Pembroke  MSS.,  recently  pub- 

1  "The  allusion  to  '  concealed  poets '  I  cannot  explain."  —  Sped- 
ding's  Life  of  Bacon,  Vol.  III.  p.  190. 

2  As  usual,  critics  differ  in  their  estimates  of  Aubrey :  — 

"  His  character  for  veracity  has  never  been  impeached  ;  and  as  a 
very  diligent  antiquary  his  testimony  is  worthy  of  attention."  — 
Malone. 

"  He  was  a  very  honest  man,  and  most  accurate  in  his  account  of 
matters  of  fact."  —  To/and. 

"  A  shiftless  person,  roving,  and  magotie-headed,  and  sometimes 
little  better  than  crazed." — Anthony  Wood. 

"  Aubrey  thought  little,  believed  much,  and  confused  everything." 
—  Gifjford. 


86  Bacon  vs.  Shakspere. 

lished,  he  figures  as  a  member,  with  Herbert, 
Hobbes,  and  Jonson,  of  Bacon's  literary  bureau  at 
Gorhambury.  In  the  preface  to  the  above-mentioned 
work,  Florio  commends  a  certain  sonnet,  written,  as 
he  says,  by  a  "  friend  "  of  his,  "  who  loved  better  to 
be  a  poet  than  to  be  counted  so."  Professors  Minto 
and  Baynes,  judging  from  internal  evidences,  concur 
in  opinion  that  the  author  of  the  "  Shake-speare " 
plays  wrote  this  sonnet.1 

1  Edward  Arber,  in  the  preface  to  his  valuable  edition  of  Bacon's 
Essays,  says  that  Anthony  Bacon  visited  Bordeaux  and  contracted  a 
friendship  with  Montaigne  in  1582,  two  years  after  the  first  publica- 
tion of  Montaigne's  Essays.  "  Without  doubt,"  he  adds,  "  this  ac- 
quaintanceship resulted  in  these  French  Essays  being  early  brought 
under  [Francis]  Bacon's  notice."  We  know  that  the  author  of  '  The 
Tempest '  was  familiar  with  them,  as  the  following  close  parallelism 
will  show :  — 

"  For  no  kind  of  trafic  "  It   is  a  nation   that   hath   no 

Would  I  admit ;  no  name  of  mag-    kind  of  trafic ;  no  knowledge  of 
istrate  ;  letters ;  ...  no   name   of   magis- 

Letters    should    not    be   known  ;     trate ;  ...  no  use  of  service,  of 
riches,  poverty,  riches,   or   of    poverty;    no   con- 

And  use  of  service,  none ;   con-    tracts,   no    successions,   no   divi- 
tract,  succession,  dences ;  no  occupations,  but  idle  ; 

Bourn,  bound  of  land,  tilth,  vine-  no  respect  of  kindred,  but  corn- 
yard,  none  ;  mon  ;  no  manuring  of  lands ;  no 
No  use  of  metal,  corn,  or  wine,  use  of  wine,  corn  or  metal."  — 
or  oil ;  Montaigne's  Essays,  I.  Chap. 
No  occupation ;  all  men  idle.  .  .  .  XXX. 
All  things  in  common." 

The  Tempest,  II.  I. 
The  above  passage  from   '  The  Tempest '  is  plainly  taken  from 
Montaigne's  Essays.     "  The  identity  of  phrase  in  the  play  and  the 
Florio  translation  indicate  the  latter  as  the  source."  —  J\.  G.  White, 
Shakespeare,  II.  88. 

It  may  be  pertinent  to  remark,  in  this  connection,  that  the  alleged 
autograph  of  Shakspere  in  a  copy  of  Florio's  '  Montaigne,'  now  in  the 
British  Museum,  is  beyond  doubt  a  forgery. 


Want  of  Employ menL  87 

X.  With  the  exception  of  a  brief  but  brilliant 
career  in  Parliament,  and  an  occasional  service  in 
unimportant  causes  as  attorney  for  the  crown,  Bacon 
seems  to  have  been  without  employment  from  1579, 
when  he  returned  from  France  at  the  age  of  eighteen, 
to  1597,  when  he  published  his  first  volume  of 
Essays.  Here  were  nearly  twenty  of  the  best  years 
of  his  life  apparently  run  to  waste.  The  volume  of 
Essays  was  a  small  i2mo,  containing  but  ten  out 
of  the  fifty-eight  sparkling  gems  which  subsequent 
editions  gave  to  the  admiration  and  delight  of  pos- 
terity. His  philosophical  works,  excepting  a  slight 
sketch  in  1585,  did  not  begin  to  appear  till  several 
years  later.  From  1597  to  1607,  when  he  was  ap- 
pointed Solicitor  General,  he  was  again,  so  far  as  we 
know,  substantially  unemployed,  —  a  period  of  ten 
years,  contemporaneous  with  the  appearance  of  the 
great  tragedies  of  Hamlet  (rewritten),  Julius  Caesar, 
King  Lear,  and  Macbeth.  In  the  mean  while  he  was 
hard  pressed  for  money,  and,  failing  to  get  relief 
(unhappily  before  the  days  of  Samuel  Weller)  in  a 
vain  effort  to  marry  a  wealthy  widow,  he  was  twice 
actually  thrown  into  prison  for  debt.1 

That  he  was  idle  all  this  time,  under  great  pecuni- 
ary pressure,  his  mind  teeming  with  the  richest 
fancy,  it  is  impossible  to  admit.  Such  a  hypothesis 
is  utterly  inconsistent  with  the   possession  of  those 

1  On  one  of  these  occasions  the  debt  was  due  to  a  Jewish  money- 
lender, and  was  paid  by  Anthony,  Francis'  brother,  who  mortgaged  his 
property  for  the  purpose.  At  about  that  time  appeared  the  great 
drama,  'The  Merchant  of  Venice,'  in  which  a  money-lending  Jew  is 
pilloried  for  all  time,  and  the  debtor's  friend,  who  also  placed  his 
property  under  mortgage  on  the  occasion,  was  named  Antonio. 


88  Bacon  vs.  Shakspere. 

fixed,  almost  phenomenal  habits  of  industry  with 
which  he  afterward  achieved  magnificent  results.  On 
this  point,  indeed,  we  have  interesting  testimony 
from  his  mother.  A  woman  of  deep  piety,  mindful 
of  the  proprieties  of  her  station  in  life,  she  evidently 
became  alarmed  over  some  mystery  connected  with 
her  son.  Probably  she  had  a  suspicion  of  its  nature, 
for  not  even  the  genius  that  created  '  Hamlet '  could 
subdue  maternal  instincts.  In  a  letter  to  Anthony, 
under  date  of  May  24,  1592,  she  expresses  her  solici- 
tude, as  follows :  — 

"  I  verily  think  your  brother's  weak  stomach  to  digest  hath 
been  much  caused  and  confirmed  by  untimely  going  to  bed,  and 
then  musing  nescio  qttid  when  he  should  sleep."  x 

At  another  time,  when  the  two  brothers  were 
together  at  Gray's  Inn,  and  full  of  enthusiasm,  as 
she  knew,  for  the  wicked  drama,  she  wrote,  begging 
them  — 

"  Not  to  mum,  nor  mask,  nor  sinfully  revel." 

It  may  be  added  that  with  his  appointment  to  high 
office  and  advent  into  public  life  the  production  of 
the  "  Shake-speare  "  plays,  for  several  years  at  least, 
suddenly  terminated.2 

1  Aubrey  says  it  was  his  lordship's  "  working  fancy  "  that  kept  him 
awake. 

2  What  a  crushing  argument  our  friends  on  the  other  side  would 
have  made  against  Scott's  authorship  of  the  Waverly  novels,  had  a 
kind  Providence  sent  them  into  the  world  fifty  years  earlier  I  Scott 
was  a  great  poet,  and  previously  to  the  publication  of  '  Waverly,'  in 
the  forty-third  year  of  his  age,  he  had  never  written  a  romance  in 
prose.  In  1814,  at  which  time  'Waverly'  made  its  mysterious  ap- 
pearance, Scott  published  in  two  volumes  a  work  on  '  Border  An- 
tiquities,' contributed  articles  on  '  Chivalry  '  and  the  '  Drama'  to  the 


Ben  Jonson. 


Ben  Jonsons  Testimony.  91 

XI.  Ben  Jonson  was  at  one  time  Bacon's  private 
secretary,  and  presumably  in  the  secret,  if  there  were 
any,  of  his  employer's  literary  undertakings.  In  this 
fact  we  find  the  key  to  the  exquisite  satire  of  the 
inscription,  composed  by  him  and  printed  opposite 
"  Shake-speare's "  portrait  in  the  folio  of  1623,  of 
which  the  following,  in  reference  to  the  engraver's 
art,  is  an  extract :  — 

"  Oh,  could  he  but  have  drawn  his  wit 
As  well  in  brasse  as  he  hath  hit 
His  face,  the  print  would  then  surpass 
All  that  was  ever  writ  in  brasse." 

The  portrait  is  "a  hard,  wooden,  staring  thing" 
(Richard  Grant  White),  stupid,  inane,  hideous,  with 

Encyclopaedia  Britannica,  and  edited  the  '  Life  and  Works  of  Dean 
Swift.'  The  latter  publication,  comprising  nineteen  volumes,  was 
issued  in  the  same  week  with  '  Waverly.'  In  the  following  year, 
'  Guy  Mannering '  appeared ;  and  also,  from  Scott,  the  two  poems, 
'  Lord  of  the  Isles'  and  '  Field  of  Waterloo.'  In  1S16  came  in  quick 
succession  from  the  Great  Unknown  the  'Antiquary,'  '  Black  Dwarf,' 
'  Old  Mortality,'  and  '  Tales  of  My  Landlord,'  first  series  ;  and  in  the 
same  year  from  Scott's  pen,  '  Paul's  Letters  to  his  Kinsfolk '  and  the 
'Edinburgh  Annual  Register.'  The  poem  'Harold  the  Dauntless1 
was  published  in  January,  1817,  preceded  within  thirty  days  by  three 
of  the  above-named  works  of  fiction. 

During  all  this  time  Scott  was  keeping  "  open  house  at  Abbotsford 
in  the  old  feudal  fashion,  and  was  seldom  without  visitors,  entirely 
occupied  to  all  outward  appearance  with  local  and  domestic  business 
and  sport,  building  and  planting,  adding  wing  to  wing,  acre  to  acre, 
plantation  to  plantation,  with  just  leisure  enough  for  the  free-hearted 
entertainment  of  his  guests  and  the  cultivation  of  friendly  relations 
with  his  humble  neighbors." 

He  even  mystified  some  of  his  most  intimate  friends  by  reviewing 
one  of  his  own  novels  in  the  '  Quarterly,'  going  so  far  as  to  claim  that 
"  the  characters  of  Shakespeare  are  not  more  exclusively  human,  not 
more  perfectly  men  and  women  as  they  live  and  move,  than  those  of 
this  mysterious  author." 


92  Bacon  vs.  Shakspere. 

straight  hair,  while  the  bust  at  Stratford  has  curls. 
Is  this  a  work  so  extraordinary  that  we  must  sigh 
because  the  artist  did  not  depict  the  mind  as  well  as 
the  face  of  his  subject  ?  Such  a  sentiment  was  very- 
appropriate  under  Bacon's  beautiful  likeness,  taken  at 
the  age  of  seventeen,  where  Jonson  found  it}  but 
what  a  satire  under  Shakspere's !  No  wonder  he 
added,  — 

"  Look, 
Not  on  his  picture,  but  his  book." 

Indeed,  it  requires  just  this  view  of  Jonson  in  his 
relations  with  the  mysterious  author  of  the  plays  to 
vindicate  his  character.  We  want  a  stroke  of  light- 
ning to  clear  the  atmosphere  around  him.  Down  to 
the  time  of  Gifford,  a  period  of  nearly  two  hundred 
years,  his  insincerity  towards  the  reputed  dramatist 
was  a  matter  of  almost  universal  comment  among 
scholars.  Dryden,  Malone,  Steevens,  Chalmers,  and 
others  looked  upon  him  for  this  reason  as  almost 
a  monster  of  ingratitude  and  jealousy.  In  1816, 
however,  Gifford  came  to  Jonson's  defence  with  all 
the  resources  of  his  practised  pen,  and,  if  he  did  not 
succeed  in  driving  his  antagonists  wholly  from  the 
field,  he  had  the  satisfaction,  at  least,  of  stretching 
several  of  them  at  full  length  upon  it. 

It  is  the  old  story  of  the  quarrel  between  two 
parties  who  were  looking  each  upon  a  different  side 
of  the  same  shield.  Jonson's  testimony  is  self-contra- 
dictory.    In  the  early  part  of  his  career  he  took  one 

1  A  miniature  painted  by  Ililliard  in  1578,  and  bearing  the  words, 
Si  tabula  daretur  digna,  animum  mallem  :  "  If  one  could  but  paint  his 
mind!" 


Ben  Jonsoris  Testimony.  93 

view  of  "  Shake-speare  "  ;  later  on,  another  and  a  very 
different  one.  The  dividing  line  may  be  drawn  at  or 
near  the  year  1620.  Previous  to  that  date  Shakspere 
was  to  him,  as  to  all  other  contemporaries  who  give 
us  any  glimpse  of  the  man,  an  impostor,  or,  in  the 
words  of  Richard  Simpson,  an  "  uneducated  peasant," 
masquerading  as  a  dramatist.  Accordingly,  his  refer- 
ences to  Shakspere  during  this  period  were  caustic 
and  bitter  in  the  extreme.  They  were  such  as  almost 
to  preclude  the  possibility  of  any  friendship  between 
them.1  We  have  already  cited  the  well-known  epi- 
gram to  Poet-Ape  ;2  we  purpose  now  to  give  two 
other  extracts  from  Jonson's  works,  written  at  this 
time  of  his  life,  and  to  give  them  in  extenso,  in  order 
that  our  readers  may  judge  fairly  and  intelligently  of 
the  use  we  shall  make  of  them. 

The  first  is  from  the  epilogue  to  '  Every  Man  in 
his  Humor,'  printed  in  1616.  The  play  was  produced 
on  the  stage  in  1598. 

"  Though  need  make  many  poets,  and  some  such 
As  art  and  nature  hath  not  bettered  much, 
Yet  ours  for  want  hath  not  so  loved  the  stage, 
As  he  dare  serve  the  ill  customs  of  the  age, 
Or  purchase  your  delight  at  such  a  rate, 
As,  for  it,  he  himself  must  justly  hate  : 

1  The  tradition  that  Shakspere  was  the  means  of  securing  for 
Jonson  an  introduction  to  the  stage  is  unsupported  by  historical  evi- 
dence.    Gifford  rejects  the  story  as  apocryphal. 

"  It  is  my  fixed  persuasion  (not  lightly  adopted,  but  deduced  from  a 
wide  examination  of  the  subject)  that  Jonson  never  received  either 
patronage,  favor,  or  assistance  from  Shakespeare."  —  Gifford's  Preface 
to  JonsoiCs  Works,  p.  ccli. 

2  Page  35. 


94  Bacon  vs.  Shakspere. 

To  make  a  child  now  swaddled,  to  proceed 
Man,  and  then  shoot  up,  in  one  beard  and  weed, 
Past  threescore  years  ;  or,  with  three  rusty  swords, 
And  help  of  some  few  foot  and  half-foot  words, 
Fight  over  York  and  Lancaster's  long  jars, 
And  in  the  ty ring-house  bring  wounds  to  scars." 

That  two  of  the  historical  plays  of  "  Shake-speare  " 
and  '  The  Winter's  Tale  '  are  slightingly  alluded  to  in 
the  above  can  hardly  be  questioned.  The  reference 
to  Perdita  in  the  comedy  is  unmistakable.  To  repre- 
sent a  babe  in  one  act,  grown  to  sweet  sixteen  in  the 
next,  was  the  most  conspicuous  violation  of  the  Greek 
unities  on  the  English  stage  at  that  time.  Blinded  by 
a  very  natural  prejudice  against  the  reputed  author 
of  the  play,  Jonson  failed  to  see  the  exquisite  beau- 
ties of  the  play  itself.  He  declared  that  he  would 
have  hated  himself,  had  he  been  the  author  of  it.1 

'The  Poetaster'  was  produced  in  1601.  The  lead- 
ing personage  in  it  is  Crispinus,  a  famous  caricature, 
in  which  the  use  of  uncouth  words  derived  from  the 
Latin,  on  the  part  of  one  or  more  of  Jonson's  rivals, 
is  severely  ridiculed.  At  the  instance  of  Horace, 
who  complained  that  many  of  these  words  were 
stolen  from  him,  Crispinus  is  finally  arrested  and 
brought  to  trial  before  a  Roman  court,  Julius  Caesar 
himself  being  present  and  taking  part  in  the  pro- 
ceedings.    The  indictment  is  read,  and  then  the  fol- 

1  In  his  conversations  with  Drummond  he  again  returned  to  the 
attack  on  the  '  Winter's  Tale.'  "  Shakespeare  wanted  art,"  he  said, 
instancing  the  sea-coast  of  Bohemia  as  a  proof,  though  he  must  have 
known  that  "  Shake-speare  "  simply  retained  that  much-abused  item 
in  geography  from  the  novel  on  which  die  play  was  founded.  See 
further  on  same  subject,  p.  101. 


Ben  Jonsoris  Testimony.  95 

lowing  paper,  duly  acknowledged  by  defendant  to  be 
of  his  composition,  is  put  in  evidence:  — 

"  Ramp  up  my  genius,  be  not  retrograde ; 
But  boldly  nominate  a  spade  a  spade. 
What,  shall  thy  lubrical  and  glibbery  muse 
Live,  as  she  were  defunct,  like  punk  in  stews  ! 
Alas  !  that  were  no  modern  consequence, 
To  have  cothurnal  buskins  frighted  hence. 
No,  teach  thy  Incubus  to  poetize, 

Upon  that  puft-up  lump  of  balmy  froth, 

Or  clumsie  chilblained  judgement ;  that  with  oath 

Magnificates  his  merit ;  and  bespawls 

The  conscious  time,  with  humorous  foam  and  brawls, 

As  if  his  organons  of  sense  would  crack 

The  sinews  of  thy  patience.     Break  his  back, 

O  poets,  all  and  some  !    For  now  we  list 

Of  strenuous  vengence  to  clutch  the  fist." 

Then  comes  the  following  remarkable  scene:  — 

Coes.   "  Here  be  words,  Horace,  able  to  bastinado  a  man's  ears. 
Hor.      Ay. 

Please  it,  great  Caesar,  I  have  pills  about  me, 

Mixt  with  the  whitest  kind  of  hellibore, 

Would  give  him  a  light  vomit,  that  should  purge 

His  brain  and  stomach  of  those  tumorous  heats, 

Might  I  have  leave  to  minister  unto  him. 
Cass.      O,  be  his  /Esculapius,  gentle  Horace ! 

You  shall  have  leave,  and  he  shall  be  your  patient. 

Virgil, 

Use  your  authority,  command  him  forth. 
Virg.     Caesar  is  careful  of  your  health,  Crispinus; 

And  hath  himself  chose  a  physician 

To  minister  unto  you ;  take  his  pills. 
Hor.      They  are  somewhat  bitter,  sir,  but  very  wholesome. 

Take  yet  another ;  so  ;  stand  by,  they  '11  work  anon. 


g6  Bacon  vs.  Shakspere. 

Crisp.  O ! 

Tib.  How  now,  Crispinus  ? 

Cris.  O,  I  am  sick ! 

Hor.  A  basin  !   a  basin  !   quickly  ;   our  physic  works.     Faint 

not,  man. 

Cris.  Retrograde  —  reciprocal  —  incubus. 

Cces.  What 's  that,  Horace  ? 

Hor.  Retrograde,  reciprocal,  and  incubus  are  come  up. 

Gal.  Thanks  be  to  Jupiter  ! 

Cris.  O  — glibbery  —  lubrical  —  defunct  —  O  —  ! 

Gal.  They  come  up  easy. 

Cris.  O  —  O  — ! 

Tib.  What 's  that  ? 

Hor.  Nothing  yet. 

Cris.  Magniftcate  — 

Mac.  Magnificate  I     That  came  up  somewhat  hard. 

Cris.  O  !  I  shall  cast  up  my  —  spurious  — 

Hor.  Good.     Again. 

Cris.  Chilblain 'd —  O  —  O  —  clumsie  — 

Hor.  That  clutnsie  stuck  terribly. 

Gal.  Who  would  have  thought  there  should  have  been  such  a 

deal  of  filth  in  a  poet  ? 

Cces.      Now  all 's  come  out,  I  trow.      What  a  tumult  he  had  in 

his  belly ! 
Hor.     No,  there  's  the  often  conscious  damp  behind  still. 
Cris.      O  —  conscious  —  damp. 

Hor.     It  is  come  up,  thanks  to  Apollo  and  >Esculapius;   yet 
there  's  another. 

You  were  best  take  a  pill  more. 
Cris.     O,  no;  O  —  O  —  O  —  O  —  O  —  ! 
Hor.     Force  yourself  then  a  little  with  your  finger. 
Cris.      O  —  O  — prorumpt. 
Tib.      Prorumpt !    What  a  noise  it  made  ! 

As  if  his  spirit  would  have  prorumpt  with  it. 
Cris.      O  —  O  —  O  ! 

Virg.     Help  him,  it  sticks  strangely,  whatever  it  is. 
Cris.      O  —  clutcht. 


Ben  yonsons  Testimony.  97 

Ccbs.      Clutch  t  /   it  is  well  that's  come  up ;  it  had  but  a  nar- 
row passage. 

Cris.      O ! 

Virg.    Again  !  hold  him  !  hold  his  head  there. 

Cris.      O  —  obsttipefact. 

Tib.       Nay,  that  are  all  we,  I  assure  you. 

Hor.      How  do  you  feel  yourself  ? 

Cris.      Pretty  and  well,  I  thank  you. 

Virg.     These  pills  can  but  restore  him  for  a  time, 
Not  cure  him  quite  of  such  a  malady. 
'T  is  necessary,  therefore,  he  observe 
A  strict  and  wholesome  diet.     Look  you  take 
Each  morning  of  old  Cato's  principles 
A  good  draught  next  your  heart.    That  walk  upon, 
Till  it  be  well  digested ;  then  come  home, 
And  taste  a  piece  of  Terence  ;  but,  at  any  hand, 
Shun  Plautus  and  Ennius  ;  they  are  meats 
Too  harsh  for  a  weak  stomach.     Use  to  read 
(But  not  without  a  tutor)  the  best  Greeks. 


Now  dissolve  the  court. 
Cces.      It  is  the  bane  and  torment  of  our  ears, 

To  hear  the  discords  of  those  jangling  rhymers, 
That  with  their  bad  and  scandalous  practices 
Bring  all  true  arts  and  learning  in  contempt. 

Blush,  folly,  blush  ;  here  's  none  that  fears 

The  wagging  of  an  ass's  ears. 

Detraction  is  but  baseness'  varlet, 

And  apes  are  apes,  though  clothed  in  scarlet." 

It  is  admitted  that  Jonson  intended  this  satire  for 
the  benefit  of  more  than  one  of  his  contemporaries, 
—  for  Marston,  among  others;  but  that  Shakspere 
was  his  principal  target  is  fully  apparent :  — 

1.  At  the  opening  of  the  above  scene  the  name  of 
Crispinus  is  given  with  a  hyphen;  thus,  Cri-spinus. 

2.  Crispinus  was  also  an  actor,  for  Caesar  expressly 

7 


98  Bacon  vs.  Shakspere. 

states  that,  "  though  clothed  in  scarlet,"  he  will  still 
be  an  ape.1  A  scarlet  dress  was  the  badge  of  the 
profession.  When  Shakspere's  company  marched 
through  the  streets  of  London  on  the  day  of  the 
king's  coronation,  each  member  of  it  was  presented 
with  four  and  one-half  yards  of  red  or  scarlet  cloth. 
No  other  person  whom  Jonson  could  have  had  in 
mind  ever  trod  the  boards.  Marston  and  Dekker 
were  playwrights  only. 

3.  Crispinus  had  no  classical  education,  for  he  is 
advised,  when  studying  the  Greek  dramatists,  to 
employ  a  tutor.  This  could  not  have  been  said  of 
Marston,  who  was  an  accomplished  Oxford  scholar. 

4.  The  father  of  Crispinus  was  a  "  man  of  wor- 
ship." John  Shakspere,  father  of  William,  had  been 
bailiff  of  Stratford,  and  entitled  to  the  designation  of 
"  worship." 

5.  Crispinus  possessed  a  coat-of-arms.  Shakspere 
had  applied  for  one,  and  on  that  account  was  called 
"  gentle." 

"  The  very  character  of  the  arms  attributed  to  Crispinus  is 
exactly  that  of  Shakspere's  fraudulent  coat;  it  belongs  to  the 
canting  department  of  heraldry,  and  is  merely  an  emblematic 
pun  upon  the  name.  The  shake  of  Shakspere  is  represented  by 
the  crest,  —  a  falcon  flapping  his  wings;  the  speare,  by  a  spear 
in  a  bend  upon  the  shield.  Such  was  Crispinus'  canting  coat : 
the  cry,  by  a  face  crying ;  the  spinas,  by  three  thorns.  There 
is  no  suggestion  that  Marston's  arms  warranted  any  sucli 
satire. 

"  It  was  not  against  the  misfortune  of  hereditary  gentility 

1  The  word  "  Ape  "  seems  to  have  been  Jonson's  favorite  appel- 
lation for  Shakspere  previously  to  1620.  It  is  the  exact  word  to 
express  his  contempt  for  a  great  literary  imposture. 


Ben  Jonsoris  Testimony.  99 

that  Jonson  directed  his  satire ;  it  was  against  the  folly,  as  he 
considered  it,  of  a  peasant  seeking  to  improve  his  social  status 
by  obtaining  a  grant  of  arms."  —  R.  Simpson,  No.  Brit.  Review, 
July,  1870,  p.  413. 

6.  The  charge  of  using  outlandish  terms  is  appli- 
cable to  "  Shake-speare  "  as  well  as  to  Marston.  The 
first  word  to  "  come  up  "  in  the  presence  of  the  Court 
was  retrograde,  "  recently  used,"  says  Mr.  Morley 
(English  Writers,  Vol.  X.  p.  392),  "  by  Shakespeare 
in  Hamlet  "  :  — 

"  It  is  most  retrograde x  to  our  desire."  —  I.  2. 

Several  others  in  the  list,  including  the  one  that 
Caesar  thought  so  fortunately  delivered,  were  also 
taken  from  "  Shake-speare."  Mr.  Donnelly  gives  the 
following  kindred  specimens  found  in  the  plays :  — 

Rubrous  Evitate 

Deracinate  Imbost 

Cantelous  Disnatured 

Recordation  Inaidable 

Enwheel  Oppugnancy 

Armipotent  Enskied 

Unsuppressive  Legerity2 

7.  This  was  also  the  opinion  of  contemporaries, 
for  the  anonymous  author  of  '  The  Return  from  Par- 
nassus,' published  in  1606,  refers  to  this  caricature  in 
'  The  Poetaster '  as  follows  :  — 

1  Bacon  used  the  word  once  in  his  prose  works  before  it  was  cari- 
catured by  Jonson.  He  called  special  attention  to  it  as,  on  the  occa- 
sion, very  apt  and  expressive. 

2  The  Great  Cryptogram ,  p.  24. 


ioo  Bacon  vs.  Shakspere. 

"  Oh,  that  Ben  Jonson  is  a  pestilent  fellow,  for  he  brought  up 
Horace  giving  the  poets  a  pill ;  but  our  fellow  Shakespeare 
hath  given  him  a  purge  that  made  him  beray  his  credit."  1 

'Bartholomew  Fair'  was  acted  in  1614;  in  the 
induction  to  that  play  we  find  the  following:  — 

"  If  there  never  be  a  servant-monster  in  a  fair,  who  can  help 
it,  he  says,  nor  a  nest  of  antiques !  he  is  loth  to  make  nature 
afraid   in    his   plays,    like    those    that   beget    tales,    tempests, 

1  Mr.  Nicholson,  the  latest  editor  of  Jonson's  works  (II.  262)  thinks 
that  "  Shake-speare  "  must  have  ridiculed  Jonson  "  in  a  piece  that  has 
not  come  down  to  us  "  (at  some  time  previously  to  the  appearance  of 
the  Poetaster),  "  as  a  precedent  for  Horace's  pills." 

"  Of  the  twenty-nine  inculpated  words,  several  either  had  been,  or 
were  immediately  afterwards,  used  by  Shakespeare,  —  such  as  retro- 
grade, reciprocal,  defunct,  puff,  damp,  clutched. 

"  In  the  '  Troilus  and  Cressida  '  it  is  quite  clear  that  Shakespeare, 
as  if  in  express  defiance  of  Jonson's  criticism,  laid  himself  out  to 
adopt  strange-sounding  words  into  his  language."  —  R.  Simpson,  No. 
Brit.  Review,  July,  1870. 

Jacob  Feis,  author  of  '  Shakspere  and  Montaigne,'  presents  an 
additional  reason  for  believing  that  Crispinus  is  a  caricature  of  Shak- 
spere.    He  says :  — 

"  The  full  name  given  by  Jonson  to  Crispinus  is  Rufus  Laberius 
Crispinus.  John  Marston  already,  in  1598,  designates  Shakspere  by 
the  nickname  of  '  Rufus.'  Every  one  can  convince  himself  of  this 
by  reading  first  Shakspere's  '  Venus  and  Adonis  '  and,  immediately 
afterwards,  John  Marston's  '  Pigmalion's  Image.' 

"  The  name  of  Rufus  has  two  peculiarities  which  may  have  induced 
Marston  to  confer  it  upon  Shakspere.  First  of  all,  like  the  English 
king  of  that  name,  Shakspere's  pre-name  was  William.  Secondly, 
the  best-preserved  portrait  of  Shakspere  shows  him  with  hair  verging 
upon  a  reddish  hue. 

"  Laberius  (from  labare,  to  shake  ;  hence  Shak-erius,  a  name  similar 
to  Greene's  Shake-scene)  is  clearly  an  indication  of  the  Poet's  [sic] 
family  name."  —  p.  160. 

Herr  Feis  also  calls  attention  to  the  fact  that  Horace  in  the  '  Poet- 
aster' asks  if  the  father  of  Crispinus  be  not  dead;  John  Shakspere 
had  just  died  in  Stratford. 


Ben  Jonsons  Testimony.  101 

and   such   like   drolleries,    to  mix  his  head  with  other  men's 
heels."  —  Ben  Jonson. 

In  explanation  of  the  above  we  quote  as  follows : 

"The  mention  of  'servant-monster  '  recalls  Caliban  in  Shake- 
speare's '  Tempest,'  and  the  expression  '  to  mix  his  head  with 
other  men's  heels,'  a  scene  in  the  play  where  Trinculo  takes 
refuge  from  the  storm  under  Caliban's  gabardine.  There  can  be 
no  doubt  that  Jonson  was  alluding  to  the  'Tempest.'"  —  Dr. 
Ingleby^s  Century  of  Praise,  p.  83. 

"  Our  author  [Jonson]  is  still  venting  his  sneers  at  Shake- 
speare."—  Whallefs  Edition  of  Jonson' 's  Works,  III.  282. 

In  1619,  Jonson  told  Drummond  of  Hawthornden 
that  "  Shakespeare  wanted  art,  and  sometimes  sense." 

Now  let  us  see  what  happened  in  1620  or  there- 
abouts for  after  that  date  we  find  in  Jonson  nothing 
but  the  most  extravagant  eulogy  of  "  Shake-speare." 
A  sudden  and  complete  change  of  heart  must  be 
accounted  for.  We  quote  the  following  from  Jonson's 
verses  prefixed  to  the  first  "  Shake-speare  "  folio  of 
1623: — 

"  Soul  of  the  age ! 
The  applause  !  delight !  the  wonder  of  our  stage  ! 
My  Shakespeare,  rise ;  I  will  not  lodge  thee  by 
Chaucer,  or  Spenser,  or  bid  Beaumont  lie 
A  little  further,  to  make  thee  a  room ; 
Thou  art  a  monument,  without  a  tomb, 
And  art  alive  still,  while  thy  book  doth  live, 
And  we  have  wits  to  read,  and  praise  to  give, 

And  tell,  how  far  thou  didst  our  Lily  outshine, 
Or  sporting  Kid,  or  Marlowe's  mighty  line. 


102  Bacon  vs.  Shakspere. 

And  though  thou  hadst  small  Latin  and  less  Greek,1 

From  thence  to  honor  thee,  I  would  not  seek 

For  names  ;  but  call  forth  thundering  /Eschylus, 

Euripides,  and  Sophocles  to  us, 

Paccuvius,  Accius,  him  of  Cordova  dead, 

To  life  again,  to  hear  thy  buskin  tread, 

And  shake  a  stage  ;  ~  or,  when  thy  socks  were  on, 

Leave  thee  alone,  for  the  comparison 

Of  all  that  insolent  Greece  or  haughty  Rome 

Sent  forth." 

During  the  latter  part  of  his  life,  Jonson  was  in  the 
habit  of  jotting  down  from  time  to  time  certain 
memorabilia,  or  disjointed  remarks  on  persons  and 
things  which  he  deemed  worthy  of  record,  and  which 
were  published  after  his  death  under  the  title  of 
'  Timber,  or  Discoveries  made  upon  Men  and  Mat- 
ter.' The  collection  contains  (not  without  some  ad- 
mixture of  facetiousness,  however)  an  amiable  sketch 
of  the  author  of  the  plays.     It  is  as  follows :  — 

1  This  is  evidently  a  humorous  remark,  called  out  by  Bacon's  well- 
known  want  of  correctness  in  the  use  of  these  foreign  tongues.  Bacon 
was  fully  aware  of  his  deficiency  in  this  respect,  for  he  once  felici- 
tated himself  in  a  private  letter  upon  the  increased  fluency  with 
which  he  was  writing  Latin.  The  Promus  notes  in  Latin  are  full  of 
inaccuracies. 

A  contemporary  thus  criticises  Bacon's  use  of  Latin :  "  I  come  even 
now  from  reading  a  short  discourse  of  Queen  Elizabeth's  life,  writ- 
ten in  Latin  by  Sir  Francis  Bacon.  ...  I  do  not  warrant  that  his 
Latin  will  abide  test  or  touch." — John  Chamberlain,  Dec.  16,  1608. 

-  Another  example  of  the  vein  of  humor  running  through  this 
whole  performance.  Greene's  characterization  of  the  reputed  dram- 
atist in  1592  as  a  "  Shake-scene  "  is  undoubtedly  referred  to. 

Further  on,  Jonson  again  parodies  the  name,  saying,  — 

"  He  seems  to  shake  a  lance, 
As  brandish't  at  the  eyes  of  ignorance." 


Ben  yonsori s  Testimony.  103 

"  I  remember  the  players  have  often  mentioned  it  as  an  honor 
to  Shakespeare  that  in  his  writing,  whatsoever  he  penn'd,  he 
never  blotted  out  a  line.  My  answer  hath  been,  '  would  he  had 
blotted  a  thousand  ! '  —  which  they  thought  a  malevolent  speech. 
I  had  not  told  posterity  this,  but  for  their  ignorance  who  choose 
that  circumstance  to  commend  their  friend  by  wherein  he  most 
faulted ;  and  to  justify  mine  own  candor ;  —  for  I  loved  the 
man,  and  do  honor  his  memory,  on  this  side  idolatry,  as  much 
as  any.  He  was,  indeed,  honest,  and  of  an  open  and  free 
nature ;  had  an  excellent  fantasy ;  brave  notions  and  gentle  ex- 
pressions, wherein  he  flowed  with  that  facility  that  sometimes 
it  was  necessary  he  should  be  stopped  ;  —  stifflaminandus  erat, 
as  Augustus  said  of  Haterius.  His  wit  was  in  his  own  power; 
would  the  rule  of  it  had  been  so  too  !  Many  times  he  fell  into 
those  things  could  not  escape  laughter;  as  when  he  said  in  the 
person  of  Caesar,  one  speaking  to  him,  —  '  Cassar,  thou  dost  me 
wrong ; '  he  replied,  —  '  Caesar  did  never  wrong  but  with  just 
cause,'  and  such  like ;  which  were  ridiculous.  But  he  re- 
deemed his  vices  with  his  virtues.  There  was  ever  more  in  him 
to  be  praised  than  to  be  pardoned." 

Considering  the  absurdity  of  the  above  criticism 
on  the  play  of 'Julius  Caesar'  (explainable  on  the 
supposition  that  Shakspere  the  actor  had  made  such 
a  mistake  in  a  recitation  on  the  stage),  we  find  our- 
selves entirely  free  to  question  the  identity  of  this 
famous  portraiture.  It  seems  to  carry  with  it  a 
double  implication,  as  though  the  artist  had  painted 
a  picture  with  the  eyes  and  nose  of  one  man,  and  the 
mouth  and  chin  of  another.  In  these  days  of  com- 
posite photography  he  would  have  focused  the  two 
heads  together  for  a  common  likeness.  As  it  is,  we 
are  sure  only  that  all  ill-nature  toward  Shakspere  was 
now  gone  from  the  rival  who  had  so  often  and,  as  the 
critics  say,  so  malignantly  persecuted  him  in  the  past 
as  an  impostor.     To  be  sure,  there  is  in  the  above 


104  Bacon  vs.  Shakspere. 

little  praise  even  now  for  anything  in  "  Shake- 
speare" but  his  personal  qualities  ;  but  those  qualities 
receive  at  last  from  Jonson  unstinted  praise.  The 
dramas  are  not  changed,  but  a  lovable  author,  instead 
of  a  "  Poet- Ape,"  now  stands  behind  them. 

The  following  is  a  summary  of  Jonson's  utterances 
concerning  "  Shake-speare  "  :  — 

1598.     He  degrades  the  stage.     He  is  ignorant  of  the  ordinary 

rules  of  dramatization. 
1601.     He  barbarizes  the  English  language,  and  brings  all  arts 

and  learning  into  contempt.     He  wags  an  ass's  ears. 

He  is  an  ape. 
1614.     His  tales  are  but  drolleries.     He  mixes  his  head  with 

other  men's  heels. 
161 6.     He  is  a  poet-ape,  an  upstart,    a  hypocrite,  and  a  thief. 

His  works  are  but  the  frippery  of  wit. 
1619.     He  wanted  art  and  sometimes  sense. 

1623.     The  soul  of  the  age;  the  greatest  writer  of  ancient  or 

modern  times. 
1637.     I  loved  him  this  side  idolatry  as  much  as  any. 

The  key  to  this  paradox  lies,  without  doubt,  in 
the  sudden  intimacy  which  Jonson  contracted  with 
Francis  Bacon  in  or  about  the  year  1620.  We  hear 
of  it  for  the  first  time  after  Jonson's  long  walk  from 
London  to  Edinburgh  in  1618-19,  for  we  know  that 
Bacon  bantered  him  on  the  subject,  protesting  that 
poetry  should  go  on  no  other  feet  than  dactyls  and 
spondees.  Jonson  soon  afterwards  took  up  his  resi- 
dence with  Bacon  at  Gorhambury,  and  became  one  of 
the  "  good  pens"  which  Bacon  employed  to  translate 
the  'Advancement'  and  other  philosophical  works 
into  Latin  ;  and  when  the  latter  celebrated  his  sixtieth 


Ben  Jonsoris  Testimony.  105 

birthday  in  January,  1621,  Jonson  was  an  honored 
guest,  making  the  occasion  memorable  by  an  epi- 
gram in  which  he  invested  the  ancestral  pile  on  the 
Thames  with  some  great  mystery,  and  apostrophized 
its  owner  in  the  following  beautiful  lines :  — 

"  England's  high  Chancellor  !  the  destined  heir, 
In  his  soft  cradle,  to  his  father's  chair; 
Whose  even  thread  the  Fates  spin  round  and  full 
Out  of  their  choicest  and  their  whitest  wool." 

This  conclusion  becomes  practically  certain  when 
we  note  the  following :  — 

1.  In  the  preface  to  the  Shake-speare  folio  Jonson 
pronounced  the  works  of  Shake-speare  superior  to 

"  All  that  insolent  Greece  or  haughty  Rome  sent  forth." 

A  few  years  afterwards,  in  his  '  Discoveries,'  he 
declared  that  Bacon's  works  were  to  be  — 

"  preferred  either  to  insolent  Greece  or  haughty  Rome." 

Evidently,  in  genius  and  therefore  in  personality, 
the  two,  as  Jonson  now  viewed  them,  had  become  one. 

2.  In  the  '  Discoveries  '  Jonson  made  a  list  of  the 
great  men  he  had  known,  thirteen  in  number.  In 
this  list  Shakspere's  name  is  not  mentioned,  but 
Bacon's  is  put  at  the  head.  Bacon  is  called  the 
"  mark  and  acme  of  our  language."  This  is  indubi- 
table proof  that  Jonson  was  not  sincere  in  his  contri- 
bution to  the  preliminary  matter  of  the  Shake-speare 
folio.     Those  famous  verses  were  exoteric  only. 

3.  Jonson  also  asserted  that  Bacon  had  "  filled  all 
numbers." 


106  Bacon  vs.  Shakspere. 

"  He  [Bacon]  hath  filled  up  all  numbers,  and  performed  that 
in  our  tongue  which  may  be  compared  or  preferred  to  insolent 
Greece  or  haughty  Rome ;  ...  so  that  he  may  be  named  the 
mark  and  acme  of  our  language."  —  Discoveries. 

To  "  fill  all  numbers"  is  a  Latinism,  signifying  to 
have  every  perfection.  In  early  times,  however,  it  was 
used  as  an  expression  for  poetry,  as  the  following 
examples  will  show  :  — 

"  These  numbers  will  I  tear,  and  write  in  prose." 

Love's  Labor  ys  Lost,  IV.  3. 

"  And  now  my  gracious  numbers  are  decayed, 
And  my  sick  muse  doth  give  another  place." 

Shakespeare  Sonnet,  LXXIX. 

"  My  early  numbers  flow." 

Milton. 

"  I  lisped  in  numbers,  and  the  numbers  came." 

Pope. 

Finally,  it  is  possible,  perhaps  even  probable,  that 
Jonson  referred  to  the  secret,  immediately  after  it 
was  revealed  to  him,  in  the  epigram  which  he  read 
on  the  occasion  of  Bacon's  sixtieth  birthday  in  162 1. 
We  have  already  quoted  a  part  of  this  production ; 
we  now  present  it  entire :  — 

"  Hail,  happy  genius  of  this  ancient  pile ! 
How  comes  it  all  things  so  about  thee  smile? 
The  fire,  the  wine,  the  men  !  and  in  the  midst 
Thou  stand'st  as  if  some  mystery  thou  didst! 
Pardon,  I  read  it  in  thy  face,  the  day 
For  whose  returns,  and  many,  all  these  pray ; 
And  so  do  I.     This  is  the  sixtieth  year 
Since  Bacon  and  thy  lord  was  born,  and  here. 
Son  to  the  grave  wise  keeper  of  the  seal, 
Fame  and  foundation  of  the  English  weal. 


Ben  Jons ons  Testimony.  107 

What  then  his  father  was,  that  since  is  he, 
Now  with  a  title  more  to  the  degree. 
England's  high  chancellor  :  the  destined  heir 
In  his  soft  cradle  to  his  father's  chair  ; 
Whose  even  thread  the  fates  spin  round  and  full, 
Out  of  their  choicest  and  their  whitest  wool. 
'T  is  a  brave  cause  of  joy,  let  it  be  known, 
For  't  were  a  narrow  gladness,  kept  thine  own. 
Give  me  a  deep-crown'd  bowl,  that  I  may  sing 
In  raising  him  the  wisdom  of  my  king." 

The  obvious  or  superficial  explanation  of  these 
lines  is  this :  Jonson,  entering  the  time-honored  man- 
sion, sees  on  all  sides  around  him  unusual  signs  of 
rejoicing,  which,  for  the  moment,  he  pretends  he 
does  not  understand.  He  invokes  the  presiding 
genius  of  the  place,  and  demands  to  know  the  cause 
of  so  much  gayety.  Then  he  begs  pardon,  for  he 
reads  the  answer  in  the  spirit's  face ;  —  it  is  the  birth- 
day of  its  lord,  over  whom  Jonson  at  once  pro- 
nounces a  splendid  panegyric.  Finally,  he  declares 
that  this  is  a  secret  which  the  spirit  of  no  private 
mansion  should  keep  to  itself,  and  offers,  if  a  well- 
filled  bowl  be  given  to  him,  to  drink  a  bumper  to  the 
king  in  tribute  to  it. 

It  will  be  noticed,  we  think,  that  this  paraphrase, 
while  entirely  faithful  to  the  original,  fails  to  do  jus- 
tice to  the  nature  or  magnitude  of  the  mystery  sug- 
gested by  the  poet.  The  "  genius  "  of  the  place  was 
making  no  effort  to  keep  the  birthday  a  secret;  on 
the  contrary,  it  was  commemorating  the  event  in  a 
manner  to  give  it  the  widest  publicity.  The  real 
"  cause  of  joy,"  which  Jonson  wanted  divulged,  was 
one  that  required  some  bravery,  as  he  said,  to  di- 


io8  Bacon  vs.  Shakspere. 

vulge  it,  but  one,  nevertheless,  that  would  bring  to  his 
friend,  in  spite  of  some  fear  to  the  contrary,  only 
honor  and  "  gladness."  That  secret,  it  may  safely 
be  assumed,  was  the  authorship  of  the  Shake-speare 
plays. 

"  'Tts  a  brave  cause  of  joy,  let  it  be  known, 
For  'twere  a  narrow  gladness,  kept  thine  own." 

"The  statements  of  Ben  Jonson  [in  the  latter  part  of  his  life] 
are  quite  compatible  with  his  being  in  the  secret."  —  Chambers'1 
Edinburg  Journal,  Aug.  7,  1852. 

XII.  With  the  exception  of  the  isolated  play  of 
'  King  John,'  the  series  depicting  English  history  ex- 
tends from  the  deposition  of  Richard  II.  to  the  birth 
of  Elizabeth,  in  the  reign  of  Henry  VIII.  In  this 
long  chain  there  is  one  break,  and  one  only,  —  the 
important  period  of  Henry  VII.,  when  the  foundations 
of  social  order,  as  we  now  have  them,  were  firmly 
laid.  The  omission,  on  any  but  the  Baconian  theory 
of  authorship,  is  inexplicable,  for  the  dramatist  could 
hardly  have  failed,  except  for  personal  considerations, 
to  drop  his  plummet  into  the  richest  and  most  in- 
structive experiences  of  political  life  that  lay  in  his 
path.  The  truth  is,  Bacon  wrote  a  history  of  the 
missing  reign  in  prose  which  exactly  fills  the  gap ; 
the  one  is  tongued  and  grooved,  as  it  were,  into  the 
other.1 

1  This  point  was  first  brought  out  by  Mr.  William  H.  Smith,  of 
England,  who  enjoys  the  distinction,  with  Miss  Delia  Bacon  and 
Mrs.  Constance  M.  Pott,  of  having  been  an  independent  discoverer 
of  the  world's  greatest  dramatist.  Miss  Bacon  made  her  public  an- 
nouncement in  Putnam's  Monthly  (N.  Y.),  January,  1856;  Mr.  Smith, 
in   an    open    letter    to    Lord    Ellesmere,    President   of  the    Shake- 


Reign  of  Henry    VII.  109 

It  is  noteworthy,  also,  that  the  events  of  this  reign 
are  admirably  suited  for  dramatic  representation. 
Indeed,  we  know  of  no  subject  for  psychological 
study  more  attractive  to  such  a  pen  as  Shakespeare's 
than  the  king's  hesitancy  in  crowning  his  royal  con- 
sort. The  marriage  with  Elizabeth  was  a  political 
one;  it  united  the  Roses,  but  not  the  hearts  of  hus- 
band and  wife.  For  several  months  the  bridegroom 
was  a  curious  prey  to  the  conflicting  sentiments  of 
ambition  and  fear.  It  was  in  this  reign,  also,  that 
Simnel  and  Perkin  Warbeck  headed  their  ridiculous 
insurrections,  —  the  former  personating  an  imprisoned 
earl,  and  the  latter  one  of  the  princes  murdered  by 
Richard  in  the  Tower,  and  both  ending  their  respec- 
tive careers  on  the  gibbet  and  doing  scullery  work 
in  the  king's  kitchen.  To  our  minds,  incidents  such 
as  these  afford  admirable  materials  for  the  stage,  and 
may  well  require  us  to  explain  why  they  were  ignored 
by  "  Shake-speare." 

XIII.  '  Troilus  and  Cressida'  was  published  for  the 
first  time,  without  reservation,  in  1609.     A  writer  in 

speare  Society  of  London,  in  September  following.  Like  Adams  and 
Le  Verrier  in  the  case  of  the  planet  Neptune,  neither  knew  at  the  time 
of  the  work,  or  even  of  the  existence,  of  the  other. 

Mr.  Smith  is  still  living  (1896),  full  of  years  and  (Baconian)  honor. 
He  had  passed  the  prime  of  life  when  he  rocked  the  cradle  of  this 
enfant  terrible. 

The  following  notice  of  his  book  is  interesting:  — 

"  Mr.  Smith  denies  the  appropriation  of  Miss  Bacon's  theory,  and 
assures  us  that  he  never  heard  the  name  of  Miss  Bacon  until  Septem- 
ber, 1856.  The  question  may  be  of  slight  importance  which  of  two 
given  individuals  first  conceived  a  crazy  notion."  —  The  {London) 
Athencmm,  1857. 

Per  contra,  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson  declared  that  Miss  Bacon  "has 
opened  the  subject  so  that  it  can  never  again  be  closed." 


no  Bacon  vs.  Shakspere. 

the  preface  claims  special  credit  for  the  work  on  the 
ground  that  it  had  not  been  produced  on  the  public 
stage,  or  (to  use  his  own  words)  "  never  clapper- 
clawed with  the  palms  of  the  vulgar,"  or  "  sullied 
with  the  smoky  breath  of  the  multitude."  Then  he 
thanks  fortune  that  a  copy  of  the  play  had  escaped 
from  "  grand  possessors." 

Three  inferences  seem  to  be  justifiable,  viz. : 
i.  The  author  was  indifferent  to  pecuniary  reward;  x 
2.  He  was  not  a  member  of  the  theatrical  profes- 
sion;   3.  He  was  of  high  social  rank. 

"  We  learn  that  the  copy  had  an  escape  from  some  powerful 
possessors.  It  appears  that  these  possessors  were  powerful 
enough  to  prevent  a  single  copy  of  any  one  of  the  plays  which 
Shakespeare  produced  in  his  noon  of  fame  (with  the  exception 
of  '  Troilus  and  Cressida '  and  '  Lear ')  being  printed  till  after 
his  death;  and  between  his  death  in  1616,  and  the  publication 
of  the  folio  in  1623,  they  continued  the  exercise  of  their  power, 
so  as  to  allow  only  one  edition  of  one  play  ('Othello')  which 
had  not  been  printed  in  his  lifetime  to  appear."  —  Charles 
Knight. 

XIV.  The  plays,  as  they  came  out,  were  first  pub- 
lished anonymously.  Several  of  them  had  been  in 
the  hands  of  the  public  for  years  before  the  name  of 
"  Shake-speare "  appeared  on  a  title-page.  Other 
plays,  not  belonging  to  the  Shakespearean  canon, 
and  most  of  them  of  very  inferior  merit,  were  also 
given  to  the  world  as  "  Shake-speare's."  We  have 
fourteen  of  these  heterogeneous  compositions  attrib- 

1  At  this  time  Bacon  was  in  easy  circumstances.  By  the  death  of 
his  brother  he  had  come  into  possession  of  Gorhambury  and  other 
remnants  of  the  family  estate  ;  and  he  was  in  receipt  of  a  salary  from 
the  government. 


First  Folio.  1 1 1 

uted  to  the  same  "divine"  authorship,  —  geese  and 
eagles  coming  helter-skelter  from  a  single  nest,  —  at 
a  time  when  Coke,  the  law  officer  of  the  government, 
declared  poetasters  and  playwrights  to  be  "  fit  sub- 
jects for  the  grand  jury  as  vagrants."  It  was  enough 
for  the  impecunious  authors  of  these  plays  that 
Shakspere,  manager  and  perhaps  part  proprietor  of 
two  theatres,  and  amassing  a  large  fortune  in  the 
business,  was  willing,  apparently,  to  adopt  every 
child  of  the  drama  laid  on  his  door-step.  This  ac- 
counts for  Greene's  characterization  of  him  as  "  an 
upstart  crow  beautified  with  our  feathers."  It  is  evi- 
dent, nevertheless,  that  "  Shake-speare  "  was  a  favor- 
ite nom  de  plume  with  the  dramatic  wits  of  that 
time.1 

XV.  The  first  complete  edition  of  the  plays,  sub- 
stantially as  we  now  have  them,  was  the  famous  folio 
of  1623.  Its  titles  number  thirty-six,  and  for  our 
present  purpose  may  be  classified  as  follows :  Plays, 
previously  printed  in  various  quartos  at  dates  rang- 
ing from  1597  to  1622,  eighteen;  those  not  previ- 
ously printed,  but  known  to  have  been  produced  on 
the  stage,  twelve ;  lastly,  those,  so  far  as  we  know, 
entirely  new,  six.  Of  the  plays  in  the  first  class  it  is 
found,  by  comparison,  that  several  had  been  rewrit- 
ten, and  in  some  cases  greatly  enlarged  during  the 

1  The  following  were  published  in  Shakspere's  lifetime,  and  sub- 
sequently incorporated  in  the  third  "Shake-speare"  folio:  — 
The  London  Prodigal,       "by  William  Shakespeare." 
Sir  John  Oldcastle,  "  "  " 

A  Yorkshire  Tragedy,  "  "  " 

Thomas  Lord  Cromwell,  "by  W.  S." 
The  Puritan,  "        " 

Locrine,  "        " 


1 1 2  Baco?i  vs.  Shakspere. 

fourteen  years  or  more  subsequent  to  their  first  ap- 
pearance. The  same  is  probably  true  of  some  in  the 
second  class,  though  on  this  point  we  are,  naturally 
enough,  without  means  of  verification.  In  any  event, 
however,  it  is  certain  that  the  compositions  which 
were  new,  together  with  those  which,  by  changes  and 
accretions,  had  been  made  new,  constitute  no  incon- 
siderable part  of  the  book.  Who  did  this  work? 
Who  prepared  it  for  the  press?  Shakspere  died  in 
1616,  seven  years  before  the  folio  was  published,  and 
for  several  years  before  his  death  he  had  lived  in 
Stratford,  without  facilities  for  such  a  task,  and  in  a 
social  atmosphere  in  the  highest  degree  unfavorable 
for  it.  On  the  other  hand,  Bacon  retired  to  private 
life  in  1621,  at  the  age  of  sixty,  in  the  plenitude  of 
his  powers,  and  under  circumstances  that  would  nat- 
urally cause  him  to  roll  this  apple  of  discord,  refined 
into  the  purest  gold,  down  the  ages.1 

1  The  most  noteworthy  examples  under  this  head  are  the  Second 
and  Third  Parts  of  Henry  VI.  These  plays  were  first  published  in 
1594  and  1595,  under  the  titles,  respectively,  of  the  First  Part  of  the 
Contention  between  the  Two  Famous  Houses,  York  and  Lancaster, 
and  the  True  Tragedy  of  Richard,  Duke  of  York.  They  were  re- 
published in  1600,  and  again  in  1619  (three  years  after  Shakspere's 
death),  under  the  same  general  title,  and  in  other  respects,  also,  sub- 
stantially as  first  printed.  In  the  folio  of  1623,  however,  they  appear 
under  new  titles,  and  largely  rewritten.  The  Second  Part  (for  in- 
stance), which  had  originally  contained  three  thousand  and  fifty-seven 
lines,  suddenly  comes  out  with  fifteen  hundred  and  seventy-eight  lines 
entirely  new,  and  with  about  one-half  of  the  remainder  altered  or 
expanded  from  passages  in  the  old. 

'The  Merry  Wives  of  Windsor'  was  first  published  in  quarto  in 
1602,  and  again,  as  a  mere  reprint,  in  1619.  In  the  folio  it  is  nearly 
twice  as  long  as  in  the  quartos,  —  the  latter  being,  as  Richard  Grant 
White  says,  "simply  a  sketch  of  the  perfected  play." 

As  printed  in  Shakspere's  lifetime,  '  Troilus  and  Cressida'  had  no 


First  Folio.  1 1 3 

XVI.  Other  mysteries  cluster  around  this  edition. 
The  ostensible  editors  were  two  play-actors,  named 
Heminge  and  Condell,  formerly  connected  with  the 
company  of  which  Shakespeare  was  a  member. 
Heminge  appears,  also,  to  have  been  a  grocer.  In 
the  dedication  of  the  book  they  characterize  the 
plays  with  singular,  not  to  say  suspicious,  infelicity 
as  "  trifles."  They  astonish  us  still  more  by  the  use 
they  make  of  Pliny's  epistle  to  Vespasian,  prefixed 
to  his  'Natural  History.'  Not  only  are  the  thoughts 
of  the  Latin  author  most  happily  introduced,  but 
they  are  amplified  and  fitted  to  the  purpose  with 
consummate  literary  skill. 

Then  follows  a  pithy  address  to  the  public,  in 
which  the  editors  seek  to  justify  their  revolutionary 
work,  undertaken  so  long  after  Shakespeare's  death, 
on  the  ground  that  all  previous  publications  of  the 
plays  had  been  made  from  stolen  copies,  and  were, 
therefore,  inaccurate  as  well  as  fraudulent.  A  com- 
parison of  the  two  sets,  however,  discloses  a  state  of 
things  quite  inconsistent  with  the  sincerity  of  Messrs. 
Heminge  and  Condell.  Some  of  the  finest  passages 
given  in  the  Quartos  are  omitted  in  the  Folio,  —  one 
particularly  in  '  Hamlet,'  in  which  the  genius  of  the 
author,  as  Swinburne  asserts,  "  soars  up  to  the  very 
highest  of  its  height,  and  strikes  down  to  the  very 
deepest  of  its  depth."  1     In  '  King  Lear,'  also,  but  for 

prologue.  It  appeared  with  one  in  1623,  —  a  circumstance  so  ex- 
traordinary that  commentators  are  vainly  inquiring  who  wrote  these 
introductory  verses. 

'Othello'  was  first  given  to  the  world  in  quarto  form  in  1622,  six 
years  after  Shakspere's  death ;  and  yet  it  received  numerous  and  im- 
portant emendations  for  the  folio  one  year  later. 

1  "  Magnificent  as  is  that  monologue  on  suicide  and  doubt,  it  is  ac- 


1 14  Bacon  vs.  Shakspere. 

the  "  stolen  copies,"  the  following  description  of  Cor- 
delia's sorrow,  together  with  the  whole  scene  con- 
taining it,  would  have  been  lost  forever :  — 

"  You  have  seen 
Sunshine  and  rain  at  once;  her  smiles  and  tears 
Were  like  a  better  May;  those  happy  smilets, 
That  play'd  on  her  ripe  lip,  seemed  not  to  know 
What  guests  were  in  her  eyes  ;  which  parted  thence, 
As  pearls  from  diamonds  dropp'd." 

And  who  is  not  shocked  at  the  statement  in  the 
folio  that  Desdemona,  at  one  of  her  first  interviews 
with  the  swarthy  Moor,  received  the  story  of  his  life 
"  with  a  world,"  not  of  sighs,  but  "  of  kisses  !  " 

"  It  can  be  proved  to  demonstration  that  several  of  the  plays 
in  the  folio  were  printed  from  earlier  quarto  editions,  and  that 
in  other  cases  the  quarto  is  more  correctly  printed,  or  from  a 
better  MS.,  than  the  folio  text,  and  therefore  of  higher  au- 
thority. For  example,  in  'Midsummer  Night's  Dream'  and 
in  '  Richard  III.'  the  reading  of  the  quartos  is  almost  always 
preferable  to  that  of  the  folio ;  and  'Hamlet,'  where  it  differs 
from  the  quartos,  differs  for  the  worse  in  forty-seven  places, 
while  it  differs  for  the  better  in  twenty  at  most." —  The  Cam- 
bridge Shakespeare,  Preface,  p.  xxvi. 

The  truth  probably  is  that  Heminge  and  Condell 
were  merely  nominal  editors;  that  they  loaned  their 
names  to  some  person  or  persons  of  high  literary 
attainments,  who  wrote  the  introductory  matter  for 
them ;  and  that  the  introductory  matter  itself,  with 
its  absurd  misrepresentation  of  facts,  was  intended  to 

tually  eclipsed  and  distanced,  at  once  on  philosophical  and  on  poetic 
grounds,  by  the  later  soliloquy  on  reason  and  resolution."  —  Study  of 
Shakespeare,  p.  166. 


First  Folio.  1 1 5 

mystify  and  cajole  the  public.     Of  the  body  of  the 
work  there  was  evidently  no  intelligent  supervision.1 

1  The  book  was  entered  for  license  at  Stationers'  Hall,  Nov.  9, 
1623;  when  it  was  printed  is  not  known.  Halliwell-Phillipps  thought 
that  a  large  part  of  it  must  have  gone  to  press  before  August  6  of 
that  year,  the  date  of  Mrs.  Shakspere's  death.  Bacon  was  banished 
from  the  court  and  from  London  in  1621,  and  may  ."not  have  had  the 
opportunity,  if  he  had  wished,  to  supervise  the  publication.  We 
know,  however,  that  he  was  indifferent  to  the  details  of  such  an  un- 
dertaking. He  permitted  the  third  edition  of  his  Essays,  printed  in 
1625,  to  go  out  so  disfigured  with  excess  of  punctuation  that  it  is  to- 
day a  typographical  curiosity.  It  is  literally  cut  into  inch  pieces  with 
commas. 

The  printing  of  the  "  Shake-speare  "  folio,  of  one  thousand  pages, 
was  undoubtedly  a  great  achievement  for  those  days.  It  was  sufficient 
to  tax  the  resources  of  any  establishment  then  existing,  or  perhaps  of 
several  establishments  combined.  The  book  was  probably  set  up 
and  printed  one  page  at  a  time,  —  a  method  generally  pursued  in  the 
early  stages  of  the  art,  and  one  that  prevailed  when  the  second  (1632) 
and  third  (1664)  editions  of  the  folio  went  to  press,  causing  that  curi- 
ous reproduction  of  page  work  about  which  so  many  conjectures  have 
recently  been  made.  As  a  rule,  compositors  were  assigned  each  a 
page  at  a  time  for  copy,  evidently  without  much  allowance,  in  the 
case  of  reprints,  for  changes  introduced  into  the  preceding  parts  of 
the  book.  The  beginnings  of  the  pages  of  the  three  editions  of  the 
"  Shake-speare "  folio  would  therefore  be  identical.  Other  irregu- 
larities may  also  be  accounted  for  in  this  simple  way.  For  instance, 
the  typos  were  too  independent  of  one  another  for  any  rigid  system 
of  paging.  The  first  edition  of  the  'Paradise  Lost'  (1667)  was  not 
paged  at  all.  Bacon's  '  Advancement  of  Learning '  had  the  leaves, 
not  the  pages,  numbered.  Even  then  the  pagination  was  exceedingly 
irregular,  as  the  following  consecutive  examples  from  it,  beginning 
with  page  69,  will  show,  —  69,  70,  70,  71,  70,  72,  74,  73,  74,  75,  69,  77, 
78,  79,  80,  77,  74,  69,  69,  82,  87,  79,  89.  The  number  on  the  last  page 
is  incorrect.     (See  Shakespeariana,  III.  334.) 

The  'Advancement  of  Learning  '  affords  another  proof  of  Bacon's 
inattention  to  such  matters.  In  the  first  edition  of  that  work  occurred 
the  word  dnsinesse,  which,  though  evidently  a  misprint,  the  author  did 
not  correct.  He  left  it  to  conjecture,  under  which  a  subsequent  editor 
let  it  pass  as  business.  It  was  not  until  Mr.  Spedding,  two  hundred 
and  fifty  years  afterwards,  compared  the  original  with  the  Latin  ver- 
sion that  the  word  was  printed  correctly,  —  dizziness. 


1 1 6  Bacon  vs.  Shakspere. 

XVII.  It  would  be  well-nigh  miraculous  if  in  all 
these  works,  dealing  as  they  do  with  so  many  kinds 
and  degrees  of  human  vicissitude,  we  could  not  find 
somewhere  in  them  a  trace  of  the  author's  own  per- 
sonality. Indeed,  editors  have  been  constantly 
searching  for  it,  even  at  the  risk  of  converting  ex- 
egesis into  biography.  Two  of  them,  for  instance, 
have  surmised  that  the  dramatist  was  educated  at 
Oxford  or  Cambridge,  and  afterward  trained  to  law 
at  one  of  the  Inns  of  Court,  because  Justice  Shallow 
recommended  such  a  course  of  study  (actually  pur- 
sued by  Bacon)  in  '  Henry  IV.'  It  is  not  surprising, 
therefore,  that  on  the  supposition  of  Bacon's  author- 
ship we  should  discover  in  two  of  the  plays  unmis- 
takable marks  of  a  great  crisis  in  his  life.  These  two 
are  '  Timon  of  Athens  '  and  '  Henry  VIII.'  They 
seem  to  be  filled,  like  ocean  shells,  with  the  dash  and 
roar  of  waves.  They  were  both  printed  for  the  first 
time  in  the  folio  of  1623,  —  the  '  Timon  '  having  never 
been  heard  of  before,  and  the  other  also,  almost  as 
certainly,  a  new  production.  An  older  play,  enti- 
tled 'All  is  True,'  based  on  unknown  incidents  of  the 
same  reign,  was  on  the  boards  of  the  Globe  Theatre 
on  the  night  of  the  fire  in  June,  1613;  but  we  have 
no  reason  to  believe  that  it  was  the  magnificent 
Shakespearean  drama  of  '  Henry  VIII.,'  at  least  in 
the  form  in  which  it  was  printed  in  the  folio  ten 
years  later.1 

1  "  It  is  in  the  folio  of  1623  that  we  hear,  for  the  first  time,  of  the 
'  Taming  of  the  Shrew,'  '  Henry  VIII.,'  '  All  's  Well  that  Ends  Well,' 
'Julius  Caesar,'  'Timon  of  Athens,'  and  '  Coriolanus.'  "  —  Halliwell- 
Phillipps'  Outlines. 

"  '  Henry  VIII.,'  as  we  have  it,  is  not  the  play  that  was  in  action 
at  the  Globe  when  that  theatre  was  burned  on  Tuesday,  29th  June, 
1613."  — Fleay's  Life  of  Shakespeare,  p.  250. 


Bacon  s  Down/all.  1 1 7 

The  catastrophe  that  overwhelmed  Bacon  in  1621 
was  one  of  the  saddest  in  the  annals  of  our  race. 
No  wonder  Timon  hurls  invectives  at  his  false 
friends,  and  Cardinal  Wolsey  utters  his  grand  but 
pathetic  lament  over  fallen  greatness !  Such  storms 
of  feeling,  sweeping  over  a  human  soul,  must  have 
gathered  their  force  among  the  mountains  and  val- 
leys of  a  mighty  personal  experience. 

" '  Timon  of  Athens '  forms  the  beautiful  close  of  Shake- 
speare's poetical  career.  It  reflects  more  clearly  than  any 
other  piece  the  poet's  consciousness  of  the  nothingness  of 
human  life.  No  one  could  have  painted  misanthropy  with 
such  truth  and  force  without  having  experienced  its  bitter 
agony." — Ulrici 's  Dramatic  Art  of  Shakespeare,  p.  244. 


IV. 

OBJECTIONS    CONSIDERED. 

As  counsel  for  defendant  may  be  disposed  at  this 
point  to  demur  to  the  evidence,  and  thus  take  the 
case  from  the  jury,  we  feel  obliged  to  file  a  statement 
of  facts  and  objections  on  the  other  side,  arranged 
seriatim  in  the  inverse  order  of  their  importance,  as 
follows :  — 

I.  From  1598,  when  the  publication  of  the  plays  ceased 
to  be  anonymous,  to  1848,  when  Joseph  C.  Hart,  an  Amer- 
ican, publicly  initiated  the  doubt  concerning  their  authorship  x 
{a  period  of  two  hundred  and  fifty  years) ,  the  whole  world, 
nem.  con.,  attributed  them  to  William  Shakspere. 

The  plays  came  into  existence  in  obscurity.  No 
person  appears  to  have  taken  the  slightest  interest  in 
their  putative  author.  His  very  insignificance  saved 
him  from  prosecution  when  the  play  of  '  Richard  II.' 

1  Disraeli  (Earl  Beaconsfield)  raised  the  question,  it  appears,  in 
his  novel,  '  Venetia,'  published  in  1837.  One  of  his  characters,  under- 
stood to  personate  Byron,  is  made  to  utter  the  following  :  — 

"  And  who  is  Shakespeare  ?  We  know  of  him  as  much  as  we  do 
of  Homer.  Did  he  write  half  the  plays  attributed  to  him  ?  Did  he 
write  even  a  single  whole  play  ?     I  doubt  it." 

"  Lord  Byron  is  reported  to  have  expressed  similar  sentiments,  in 
propria  persona,  several  years  earlier."  —  Meet-win's  Conversations  with 
Lord  Byron,  1821. 

Our  attention  was  called  to  these  interesting  facts  by  Mr.  W.  H. 
Wyman,  of  Omaha,  Nebraska. 


Opinions  of  Critics.  119 

was  used  by  Essex  for  treasonable  ends ;  and  the 
same  indifference  to  him  continued  for  a  long  time 
after  his  death.  Indeed,  the  critics  were  as  blind  to 
the  character  of  these  great  works  as  they  were,  in 
the  early  part  of  the  present  century,  to  the  merits  of 
Wordsworth,  whom  the  most  eminent  of  them  at  one 
time  flatly  denounced  as  little  better  than  an  idiot. 
Wordsworth  now  ranks  as  third  in  the  list  of  British 
poets.1 

Dr.  Appleton  Morgan,  in  his  brilliant  contribution 
to  the  literature  of  this  subject,  reminds  us  of  the 
general  contempt  in  which  the  plays  were  buried  at 
the  time  of  Cromwell,  and,  to  a  certain  extent,  for 
more  than  a  hundred  years  after  the  Restoration.  In 
1661  Evelyn  reports  that  they  "  begin  to  disgust  this 
refined  age."  Pepys  preferred  Hudibras  to  "  Shake- 
speare," pronouncing  'Midsummer  Night's  Dream' 
the  "  most  insipid,  ridiculous  play,"  and  '  Romeo  and 
Juliet' the  "worst,"  he  had  ever  seen.  He  thought 
very  well  for  a  time  of  '  Othello,'  but  an  unkind 
providence  leading  him  to  read  the  '  Adventures  of 
Five  Hours,'  he  immediately  regarded  '  Othello '  as 
"  mean,"  and  '  Twelfth  Night '  (the  perfection  of 
English  comedy)  as  "silly."  In  168 1  Tate,  a  poet 
who  afterward  wore  the  laurel,  could  find  no  epithet 
sufficiently  opprobrious  to  express  his  aversion  for 
'  King  Lear,'  and  so  he  called  it  simply  a  "  thing." 
In  Hume's  condemnation,  "  Shake-speare  "  and  Bacon 

1  The  next  in  rank  had  the  same  experience.  The  great  critic, 
"  Christopher  North,"  did  not  hesitate  to  call  Tennyson,  on  the  ap- 
pearance of  the  first  book  of  his  poems  in  1830,  "an  owl,"  and  to  say, 
"All  that  he  wants  is  to  be  shot,  stuffed,  and  stuck  in  a  glass  case,  to 
be  made  immortal  in  a  museum." 


120  Bacon  vs.  Shakspere. 

were  yoked  together  as  wanting  in  simplicity  and 
purity  of  diction,  "  with  defective  taste  and  elegance." 
Addison  styled  the  plays  "  very  faulty,"and  Johnson 
asserted,  with  his  usual  emphasis,  that  "  Shake- 
speare "  never  wrote  six  consecutive  lines  "  without 
a  fault."  "  Perhaps  you  might  find  seven,"  he  added, 
with  grim  humor,  "  but  that  does  not  refute  my  gen- 
eral assertion."  He  further  declared  that  "  Shake- 
speare "  had  not,  perhaps,  produced  "  one  play  which, 
if  it  were  now  exhibited  as  the  work  of  a  contem- 
porary writer,  would  be  heard  to  the  conclusion." 
Margaret  Cavendish,  a  voluminous  author  of  the 
seventeenth  century,  took  her  cue  from  no  less  a 
person  than  Homer,  who  praised  the  valor  of  the 
Trojans  in  order  to  make  the  victory  of  the  Greeks 
more  glorious;  she  praised  the  wit  of  the  plays,  but 
ended  in  a  fine  gush  of  conjugal  loyalty  by  claiming 
that  her  own  husband  was,  in  that  respect  at  least, 
superior  to  the  creator  of  Falstaff.  Dryden,  though 
not  without  lucid  intervals  of  high  appreciation,  still 
regarded  "  Shake-speare "  and  Fletcher  as  "  below 
the  dullest  writers  of  our  own  or  any  precedent  age," 
full  of  "  solecisms  of  speech,"  "  flaws  of  sense,"  and 
"  ridiculous  and  incoherent  stories  meanly  written." 
He  disapproved  of  "  Shake-speare's  "  style,  describing 
it  as  "  pestered  with  figurative  expressions,"  "  affected," 
and  "  obscure." 

In  1680  Otway  stole  the  character  of  the  nurse  and 
all  the  love-scenes  in  '  Romeo  and  Juliet,'  and  pub- 
lished them  as  his  own,  evidently  under  no  fear  of 
detection. 

The  author  of  the  '  Tatler,'  one  hundred  years  after 
"  Shake-speare's"  time,  told  the  story  of  the  'Taming 


Opinions  of  Critics.  1 2 1 

of  the  Shrew'  as  though  it  were  new  to  his  readers; 
and  having  occasion  to  quote  a  few  lines  from  '  Mac- 
beth,' was  content  to  receive  them  from  a  new  ver- 
sion of  that  drama,  in  which,  as  Chalmers  says, 
"  almost  every  original  beauty  is  either  awkwardly 
disguised  or  arbitrarily  omitted." 

John  Dennis,  also,  thought  himself  competent  to 
rewrite  the  plays,  and  he  actually  put  one  or  two  of 
them,  "  revised  and  improved,"  on  the  boards  in 
London,  apparently  without  the  least  suspicion,  on 
the  part  of  the  audiences  that  witnessed  them,  of  any 
sacrilege.  It  was  George  Granville,  however,  who 
gave  to  "  Shake-speare  "  the  unkindest  cut  of  all, 
for,  having  rewritten  the  '  Merchant  of  Venice,'  he 
brought  "  Shake-speare's  "  ghost  upon  the  stage,  and 
made  him  say,  — 

"  The  first  rude  sketches  [my  own]  pencil  drew, 
But  all  the  shining  master-strokes  are  new. 
This  play,  ye  critics,  shall  your  fury  stand, 
Adorn'd  and  rescu'd  by  a  faultless  hand." 

In  this  respect  Davenant  was  the  most  persistent 
offender,  for  he  remodelled  '  Macbeth,'  '  Measure  for 
Measure,'  '  Much  Ado  about  Nothing,'  and  also  (in 
conjunction  with  Dryden)  '  The  Tempest.' 

In  this  latter  play  the  treatment  of  Miranda,  who 
had  never  seen  a  man,  and  of  Hippolyto,  a  new 
character  who  had  never  seen  a  woman,  is,  as  the 
work  of  two  poets  laureate,  almost  incredible.  After 
Davenant's  death,  Dryden  went  on  with  the  task  of 
demolishing  these  edifices  of  marble  and  rebuilding 
them  with  brick.1 

1  "  There  was  probably  no  man  of  his  day  better  qualified  to  write 
sound  criticism  on  the  drama,  as  he  knew  it,  than  Uryden.     Dryden 


122  Bacon  vs.  Shakspe-re. 

Thomas  Rymer  capped  the  climax.  He  was  His- 
toriographer Royal,  and  he  left  behind  him  works 
that  constitute  a  small  library.  He  said  of  Desde- 
mona,  "There  is  nothing  in  her  which  is  not  below 
any  country  kitchen-maid ;  no  woman  bred  out  of  a 
pig-sty  could  talk  so  meanly."  And  of  Othello, 
"  There  is  not  a  monkey  but  understands  nature 
better;  not  a  pug  in  Barbary  that  has  not  a  truer 
taste  of  things." 

Steevens  declared  that  only  an  act  of  Parliament 
could  make  any  one  read  the  sonnets. 

On  the  other  side,  we  have  a  stock  quotation  from 
Milton,  as  follows :  — 

"  Or  sweetest  Shakespeare,  Fancy's  child, 
Warble  his  native  wood-notes  wild,"  — 

requiring  a  considerable  stretch  of  the  imagination 
to  apply  to  the  plays.  Mr.  White  calls  it  "  a  petty, 
puling    dribble    of   belittling,    patronizing    praise."  1 

tells  us  that  he  loved  Shakespeare,  and  he  says  a  great  deal  about 
Shakespeare  that  shows  an  appreciation  unusual  for  those  times ;  but 
he  confesses  that  he  admired  Ben  Jonson  more,  and  thought  Beau- 
mont and  Fletcher  superior  for  the  construction  of  plots,  for  natural 
dialogue,  for  pathos,  and  for  gayety.  Even  this  might  pass,  but  before 
he  died,  Dryden  declared  Congreve  to  be  the  equal  of  Shakespeare." 
—  Pearson's  National  Life  and  Character,  p.  306. 

1  "  The  boundless  veneration  for  Shakespeare  in  the  sonnet  is, 
indeed,  gone  in  this  passage."  —  Masson's  Life  of  Milton. 

"  Fond  and  belittling  phrases,  as  little  appropriate  as  would  be 
the  patronizing  chatter  of  the  planet  Venus  about  the  dear,  darling 
Sun." —  Whipple's  Literature  of  the  Age  of  Elizabeth,  p.  37. 

"  No  poet  was  ever  less  a  warbler  of  'wood-notes  wild.'  "  —  Walter 
Savage  Landor. 

"The  slur,  the  gibe,  and  the  covert  satire  are  too  obvious."  — 
Isaac  Disraeli. 

"  Milton's  panegyric  takes  no  notice  at  all  of  the  tragedies.     This 


Ireland's  Forgeries.  123 


6 


Milton  was  a  Puritan,  and  probably  never  soiled  his 
fingers  with  a  copy  of  these  wicked  works.  He  had 
some  knowledge  of  their  character,  to  be  sure,  for  he 
accused  Charles  I.  of  making  them,  and  "  other  stuff 
of  this  sort,"  his  daily  reading.  Evidently,  in  Milton's 
opinion,  a  king  who  read  and  admired  '  Hamlet '  or 
'  Othello '  deserved  to  lose  his  head.1 

With  such  sentiments  as  these  in  vogue  regarding 
the  plays  themselves,  how  much  value  should  we 
attach  to  the  concurrent  belief  in  the  authorship  of 
them?  Why  should  men  look  upward  for  a  star 
when  they  are  content  to  see  it  reflected  in  the  dirty 
puddles  of  the  streets?  And  how  natural,  under  a 
law  of  moral  mechanics,  the  swinging  of  public  opin- 
ion from  blind  detraction  at  one  time  to  equally 
blind  idolatry  at  another  !  2 

always  suggested  to  me  that  he  had  no  idea  that  the  author  of  the 
songs  had  any  hand  in  them." — Prof.  Francis  W.  Newman,  Letter  to 
the  Echo,  Dec.  31,  1887. 

In  his  Preface  to  the  '  Samson  Agonistes'  (1671),  Milton  refers  to 
^Eschylus,  Sophocles,  and  Euripides  as  "  the  three  tragic  poets  un- 
equalled yet  by  any." 

1  In  his  youth  Milton  wrote  a  sonnet  to  Shakespeare,  which  is  one 
of  the  finest  in  our  language.  It  was  prefixed  to  the  folio  edition  of 
the  plays  published  in  1632. 

2  As  a  specimen  of  the  capacity  of  Shakespearean  critics,  exhibited 
one  hundred  years  later  still,  we  give  the  following  facts :  — 

In  1795  a  boy  in  London,  seventeen  years  old  and  possessing  no 
precocity  but  that  of  impudence,  composed  a  play  nearly  as  long  as 
'  Hamlet,'  which  he  undertook  to  palm  upon  the  world  as  "  Shake- 
speare's." The  effect  was  electrical.  Dr.  Warton,  Henry  James  I've 
(poet  laureate),  Sir  Isaac  Heard,  Dr.  Parr,  James  Pioswell,  John 
Pinkerton,  George  Chalmers,  and  many  others,  commentators,  stu- 
dents, and  lovers  of  "  Shake-speare,"  received  the  work  with  delighted 
credulity.  Boswell  gave  thanks  to  God  that  he  had  lived  to  see  it. 
Sheridan  purchased  the  MS.  for  the  Drury  Lane  Theatre,  where  the 


124  Bacon  vs.  Shakspere. 

"In  the  neighing  of  a  horse,  or  in  the  growling  of  a  mastiff, 
there  is  a  meaning,  there  is  as  lively  expression,  and,  I  may 
say,  more  humanity,  than  many  times  in  the  tragical  flights  of 
Shakespeare."  —  Rymer,x  1693. 

"  The  true  restoration  of  a  single  line  in  Shakespeare  is 
well  worth  the  best  volume  of  any  other  English  writer."  — 
Halliwell-Philtipps,  1850. 

//.  It  is  hardly  conceivable  that  Bacon,  if  the  author  of 
these  works,  would  not  have  claimed  the  credit  of  them  be- 
fore he  died,  or,  at  least,  left  posthumous  proofs  that  would 
have  established  his  title  to  them. 

Bacon  had  one  great  aim  in  life,  —  an  aim  that,  it 
seems  to  us,  gave  a  fine  consistency  to  all  that  he 
did.      He  sought  to  instruct  in  better  ways  of  think- 

wretched  stuff  was  brought  out  to  an  overflowing  house  amid  great 
excitement.  The  young  man  had  the  audacity  even  to  produce  a 
love-letter,  purporting  to  have  been  written  by  Shakspere  to  Anne 
Hathaway,  and  containing  a  lock  of  red  hair. 

"  All  the  critics  of  the  land  came  to  look  upon  the  originals.  Some 
went  upon  their  knees  and  kissed  them.  Hard  names  were  given  and 
returned ;  dunce  and  blockhead  were  the  gentlest  vituperations.  The 
whole  controversy  turned  upon  the  color  of  the  ink,  the  water-mark 
of  the  paper,  the  precise  mode  of  superscription  to  a  letter,  the  con- 
temporary use  of  a  common  word,  the  date  of  the  first  use  of  promis- 
sory notes,  the  form  of  a  mortgage.  Scarcely  one  of  the  learned  went 
boldly  to  the  root  of  the  imposture,  and  showed  that  Shakespeare 
could  not  have  written  such  utter  trash." — Charles  Knight. 

"  The  Irelands  palmed  upon  literary  critics  a  manuscript  play  of 
Shakespeare  ;  it  was  read,  discussed  ;  an  antiquarian  or  two  said 
no ;  most  of  the  critics  said  yes,  and  fell  upon  their  knees  before  the 
manuscript.  It  was  put  upon  the  stage:  coal-heavers  and  apprentices 
set  literary  criticism  right  in  ten  minutes.  Why  ?  The  stuffed  fish, 
thrown  down  on  a  bank,  might  pass  for  a  live  fish  ;  but  put  it  in  the 
water  !  "  —  Charles  Reade. 

1  Here  are  two  opinions  of  Rymer  :  — 

"  One  of  the  best  critics  we  ever  had."  —  Pope. 

"  The  worst  critic  that  ever  lived."  —  Macaulay. 


Reasons  for  Concealment.  1 2  5 

ing,  not  his  own  generation  alone,  but  those  that 
were  to  come  after.  "  I  feel  myself  born,''  he  says 
in  one  of  his  letters,  "  for  the  service  of  mankind." 
Accordingly,  we  find  him  in  his  will  bequeathing  sets 
of  his  philosophical  works  and  his  essays  to  the  chief 
public  libraries  of  the  kingdom.  He  even  translated 
them  into  Latin,  for  the  avowed  reason  that  our 
modern  languages  are  ephemeral,  while  Latin  will 
last  as  long  as  human  speech.1  In  his  will,  also,  with 
the  sublime  confidence  that  is  inseparable  from 
genius,  he  left  his  name  and  memory  to  the  "  next 
ages." 

At  the  same  time  he  showed  no  anxiety  for  per- 
sonal credit.  His  mind  was  bent  on  grander  results. 
In  the  introduction  to  one  of  his  books,  unpublished 
at  the  time  of  his  death,  he  asks  his  executors  to 
leave  some  parts  of  it  unprinted,  in  order  that  they 
might  be  passed  in  manuscript  "  from  hand  to  hand." 
He  had  the  curious  conception  that  in  this  imper- 
sonal way  certain  truths  might  take  deeper  root. 
Then  follow  these  noble  words :  — 

"  For  myself  my  heart  is  not  set  upon  any  of  those  things 
which  depend  on  external  accidents.  I  am  not  hunting  for 
fame.  I  have  no  desire  to  found  a  sect,  after  the  fashion  of  the 
heresiarchs ;  and  to  look  for  any  private  gain  from  such  an 
undertaking  as  this,  I  should  consider  both  ridiculous  and 
base.  Enough  for  me  the  consciousness  of  well-deserving, 
and  those  real  and  effectual  results  with  which  fortune  itself 
cannot  interfere." 

1  Latin  was  at  that  time  the  common  language  of  scholars  through- 
out the  civilized  world.  Bacon,  who  appreciated,  perhaps  more  than 
any  other  man  then  living,  the  advantages  of  such  a  medium,  thought 
it  would  remain  so  indefinitely.  He  failed  to  perceive  that  a  language 
for  scholars,  per  se,  would  retard  not  only  the  diffusion  of  knowledge 
but  its  advancement. 


126  Bacon  vs.  Shakspere. 

The  ring  of  these  words  three  centuries  have  not 
dulled.  They  will  ring  through  all  time,  for  they 
are  of  pure  gold. 

It  should  be  remembered,  too,  that  Bacon  had  an 
ambition  to  occupy  his  father's  seat  on  the  woolsack, 
and  that  to  be  known  as  a  writer  of  plays  for  money 
would  have  been  fatal  to  his  advancement.  After 
his  downfall  he  had  not  the  heart,  if  he  had  the  will, 
for  the  exposure.  He  may  well  have  hesitated  to 
make  another  invidious  confession  in  the  face  of  a 
frowning  world.1 

"  The  question  why  Bacon,  if  he  were  the  composer  of  the 
plays,  did  not  acknowledge  the  authorship,  is  not  difficult  to 
answer.  His  birth,  his  position,  and  his  ambition  forbade  him, 
the  nephew  of  Lord  Burleigh,  the  future  Lord  Chancellor  of 
England,  to  put  his  name  on  a  play  bill.  In  the  interest  of  his 
family  and  of  his  political  career,  the  secret  must  be  so  strictly 
preserved  that  mere  anonymity  would  not  be  sufficient.  A  live 
man-of-straw,  a  responsible  official  representative  known  to 
every  one,  was  required.  No  person  could  be  better  fitted  for 
such  a  purpose  than  an  actor,  wise  enough  to  understand  and 
appreciate  what  was  to  his  own  advantage.  Perhaps  this 
'  Johannes  Factotum  '  of  Greene's  did  not  know  the  name  of 
his  benefactor.  But  even  if  he  did  know  the  name,  it  was 
obviously  to  his  interest  to  keep  from  the  world,  and  particu- 
larly from  his  gossiping  companions,  a  secret  which  brought 
him  money  and  fame."  —  Allgemeine  Zeitung. 

1  A  French  critic  has  conjectured  that  Bacon  may  have  left  instruc- 
tions to  his  executors  to  divulge  the  secret  at  some  opportune  time 
after  his  death,  but  that  the  alarming  growth  of  Puritanism,  culmi- 
nating in  its  complete  ascendancy  under  Cromwell  twenty-five  years 
later,  rendered  such  a  step  inexpedient.  Holding  his  reputation  in 
trust  and  knowing  what  a  fierce  popular  storm  the  announcement 
would  cause,  they  may  have  deemed  it  their  duty  to  let  the  plays 
remain  as  "  Mr.  William  Shakespeare's,"  until  such  time  as  these 
writings  might  reveal  by  their  own  light  the  name  and  genius  of  the 
author. 


Reasons  for  Concealment.  127 

Sir  Walter  Scott  kept  his  authorship  of  the  Wa- 
verley  Novels  from  the  public  for  more  than  twelve 
years,  because  he  deemed  the  writing  of  fiction  be- 
neath the  dignity  of  a  clerk  of  courts  and  of  a  land- 
owner.    Thirty-two  persons  shared  the  secret. 

The  letters  of  Junius  are  among  the  most  cele- 
brated of  literary  productions.  In  elegance  of  dic- 
tion, in  perspicuity  and  force  of  argument,  in  display 
of  knowledge,  in  boldness  and  in  high  moral  tone, 
they  have  seldom  been  surpassed;  but  the  writer 
carried  the  secret  with  him  to  his  grave.  And  we 
have  no  reason  to  believe  that  while  indulging  in  this 
self-abnegation,  he  had  any  other  title,  as  Bacon  had, 
to  immortal  honor. 

The  popular  ballad,  '  Auld  Robin  Gray,'  was  dis- 
owned for  a  period  of  fifty  years  by  the  gifted  woman 
who  wrote  it.  It  was  not  until  some  other  per- 
son had  claimed  the  authorship  that  the  secret  was 
disclosed. 

It  must  not  be  supposed,  for  an  instant,  that  if 
Bacon  wrote  the  plays  he  did  not  appreciate  them. 
He  confessed  to  a  correspondent  that  certain  of  his 
writings  (not  described  by  him,  but.  without  doubt, 
like  the  Essays,  literary  in  their  character)  might 
after  all  do  more  for  his  fame  than  those  others  upon 
which  he  was  expending  his  greatest  energies.1  And 
yet  it  is  equally  certain  that,  if  he  then  had  the  plays 

1  "As  for  my  Essays  and  some  other  particulars  of  that  nature,  I 
count  them  but  as  the  recreations  of  my  other  studies,  and  in  that  sort 
purpose  to  continue  them ;  though  I  am  not  ignorant  that  that  kind 
of  writing  would,  with  less  pains  and  embracement,  perhaps  yield 
more  lustre  and  reputation  to  my  name  than  those  other  which  I 
have  in  hand."  —  Bacon  to  Bishop  Andrews,  1622. 


128  Bacon  vs.  Shakspe?'e. 

in  mind,  he  could  not  have  anticipated  for  them  the 
species  of  idolatry  with  which  they  are  now  regarded. 
No  man  can  entirely  dispossess  himself  of  the  preju- 
dices of  the  age  in  which  he  lives.  The  moral  atmos- 
phere exerts  a  pressure  upon  the  intellect  as  great 
as  that  of  the  physical  upon  the  body.  Bacon's 
mind  was  so  filled  with  a  sense  of  the  infinite  im- 
portance of  his  new  method  in  philosophy  that 
everything  else  "paled  its  uneffectual  fires"  in 
comparison. 

Authors    are    very    apt    to    misjudge    the    relative 
values   of  their    different   works.     Galileo   is   said   to 
have  considered   his    theory  of  the  tides  (which  was 
wholly     erroneous)     a    more     brilliant     triumph     of 
his    skill  than    all    his    discoveries    in    the    heavens.1 
Descartes   subordinated    his    beautiful   exposition   of 
the  rainbow  to  an  absurd  doctrine   of  planetary  vor- 
tices.      Milton   thought  his    '  Paradise    Regained  '    a 
finer  poem    than    the    'Paradise    Lost."     Wellington 
would   never   admit    that   Waterloo  was  his  greatest 
battle.     Is  it,  then,  extraordinary  that  Francis  Bacon, 
contemplating  the  vast  results  which  he  knew  would 
follow,  and  which  actually  did  follow,  the  appearance 
of  his  '  Instauratio  Magna,'  neglected  other  composi- 
tions   upon    which    he    had     spent    only    his    recre- 
ative   hours,    which    nearly    every    one    about    him 
despised,   which    a   great  essayist   quoted    from,   one 
hundred   years  later,  as  though  they  were  then  un- 
known,  and   over  which    David   Garrick.    fifty  years 
later  still,  created  a  sensation  among  his  fellow-actors 

1  Galileo  strangely  assumed  that  tides  ebb  and  flow  but  once  in 
twentv-four  hours. 


Errors  and  Anachronisms.  129 

in  London  by  using  the  text  as  it  had  come  from  the 
author,  instead  of  one  from  scribblers  and  mounte- 
banks to  which  they  had  become  accustomed? 

III.  The  plays  contain  anachronisms  and  other  errors 
which  Bacon,  "  who  took  all  knowledge  for  his  province" 
could  not  have  committed. 

Chief  among  the  errors  in  question,  of  sufficient 
importance  to  be  noted  here,  are  the  following :  — 

1.  The  famous  one  in  the  quotation  from  Aris- 
totle : 1  — 

"  Young  men,  whom  Aristotle  thought 
Unfit  to  hear  moral  philosophy." 

Tr otitis  and  Cressida,  II.  2. 

It  was  political  philosophy  that  Aristotle  referred 
to  ;  but  Bacon  makes  the  same  mistake.  He  quotes 
the  Greek  as  saying,  — 

"  Young  men  are  no  fit  auditors  of  moral  philosophy." 

Even  in  their  blunders  our  two  authors  were  not 
divided. 

2.  The  curious  conception  of  heat  in  its  "mode  of 
motion,"  one  flame  pushing  another  by  force  out  of 
its  place- 
Shakespeare  :  — 

"  Even  as  one  heat  another  heat  expels, 
Or  as  one  nail  by  strength  drives  out  another." 

Two  Gentlemen  of  Verona,  1 1 .  4. 

"One  fire  drives  out  one  fire;  one  nail,  one  nail." 

Coriolanus. 

1  "  Aib  rrjs  iro\iTiKris  ovk  ecTtv  oiKt7os  aKpoarfys  6  vtos."  —  JVicoma- 
chean  Ethics,  I.  3. 


130  Bacon  vs.  Shakspere. 

Bacon :  — 

"  Flame  doth  not  mingle  with  flame,  but  remaineth  contigu- 
ous." —  Advancement  of  Learning. 

"  Clavum  clavo  pellere  "  (To  drive  out  a  nail  with  a  nail).  — 
Promus. 

The  materiality  of  heat  was  a  dogma  of  the  an- 
cients. It  held  almost  absolute  sway  over  mankind 
till  long  after  the  time  of  Francis  Bacon  ;  but  this 
nail  illustration,  found  in  Bacon's  intellectual  work- 
shop and  reproduced  in  the  plays,  is  startling.  It 
may  fairly  be  said  to  clinch  the  argument. 

3.  Mark  Antony  tells  the  Romans  that  he  comes 

'•  To  bury  Caesar,  not  to  praise  him.*' 

notwithstanding  the    fact  that  the  Romans   did   not 
bury  the  bodies   of  their  dead. 

The  play  was  written  for  an  English  stage,  and  for 
an  audience  to  whom  cremation  was  practically  un- 
known. The  reference  to  burial  indicates  the  art, 
rather  than  the  ignorance,  of  the  dramatist.  What 
would  our  critics  say  of  a  famous  actor  of  modern 
times  who  always  armed  the  Roman  guard  in  the 
play  with  Springfield  muskets ! 

"  Shakespeare  turns  his  Romans  into  Englishmen,  and  he 
does  right,  for  otherwise  his  nation  would  not  have  understood 
him.''  —  Goethe. 

4.  A  Trojan  hero  quotes  Aristotle,  Cleopatra  plays 
billiards,  and  a  clock  strikes  the  hours  in  ancient 
Rome. 

Historical  perspective  is  not  necessary  to  the 
drama.  The  poet  sees  the  world  reflected  on  a  retina 
that   ignores    time    and    place.      He    idealizes    facts. 


Globe  Theatre 


Errors  and  Anachronisms.  133 

Egypt,  Greece,  Rome,  Pericles,  Caesar,  are  so  many 
stars  set  in  his  firmament,  and  shining  apparently  in 
one  plane.  This  illusion  extended  even  to  the  acces- 
sories of  the  stage  in  Shake-speare's  day.  There  was 
no  scenery  to  help  the  spectators.1  Imagination  was 
left  to  its  own  unaided  wings,  with  nothing  but  the 
atmosphere  of  the  play  to  sustain  it.  At  the  call  of 
the  magical  flute  piping  through  the  Globe,  billiards, 
clocks,  churchyards,  seaports,  Ilium,  all  local  and 
temporary  objects  of  sense,  "  shot  madly  from  their 
spheres,"  in  blind  obedience  to  the  melody.2 

1  The  want  of  scenic  effects  is  thus  portrayed  by  Sir  Philip 
Sidney :  — 

"  You  shall  have  Asia  of  the  one  side  and  Africa  of  the  other,  and 
so  many  other  under  kingdoms  that  the  player,  when  he  comes  in, 
must  ever  begin  with  telling  where  he  is.  .  .  .  Now,  you  shall  have 
three  ladies  walk  to  gather  flowers,  and  then  you  must  believe  the 
stage  to  be  a  garden ;  by  and  by,  we  have  news  of  a  shipwreck  in  the 
same  place,  and  we  are  to  blame  if  we  accept  it  not  for  a  rock.  Upon 
the  back  of  that  comes  a  hideous  monster,  with  fire  and  smoke,  and 
the  miserable  beholders  are  bound  to  take  it  for  a  cave;  while,  in  the 
mean  time,  two  armies  fly  in,  represented  with  four  swords  and  buck- 
lers, and  then  what  hard  heart  will  not  receive  it  for  a  pitched  field  ? " 

•  It  may  be  well  to  add,  on  this  subject  of  anachronisms,  that  the 
game  of  billiards  was  known  to  the  ancients  before  the  time  of  Cleo- 
patra, and  that  the  boundaries  of  Bohemia,  it  is  said,  once  extended 
to  the  sea-coast.  These  facts,  however,  are  immaterial.  Is  it  pos- 
sible to  conceive  that  the  author  of  '  Coriolanus,'  'Julius  Cassar," 
'Anthony  and  Cleopatra,'  '  Timon  of  Athens,'  and  'Troilus  and 
Cressida,'  whoever  he  was,  did  not  know  that  Aristotle  lived  hun- 
dreds of  years  after  the  time  of  Hector  ? 

It  was  one  of  the  rules  laid  down  by  Lessing,  perhaps  the  ablest 
literary  critic  that  ever  lived,  that  dramatic  art  should  represent  not 
what  men  have  done,  but  what  under  given  circumstances,  without 
regard  to  actual  occurrences,  men  would  do;  not  historical  truth,  but 
the  laws  and  principles  of  human  nature.  Goethe  followed  this  rule 
in  the  composition  of  his  '  Egmont,'  making  Machiavelli  Margaret  of 
Parma's  secretary,  though   Machiavelli  died  fifty  years  before  Mar- 


134  Bacon  vs.  Shakspere. 

"  Poesy  is  feigned  history,  which,  not  being  tied  to  the  laws 
of  matter,  may  at  pleasure  join  that  which  nature  hath  severed, 
and  sever  that  which  nature  hath  joined,  and  so  make  unlawful 
matches  and  divorces  of  things."  —  Bacon. 

"  There  is  no  reason  why  an  hour  should  not  be  a  century 
in  the  calenture  of  the  brains  that  can  make  the  stage  a  field." 
—  Dr.  Johnson. 

Numerous  other  errors  of  a  minor  character  are 
found  in  the  plays,  though,  like  the  spots  on  the 
sun's  disk,  they  are  lost  to  all  but  professional 
observers  in  the  radiance  that  envelops  them.  Para- 
doxical as  it  may  seem,  however,  these  very  blem- 
ishes are  a  distinct  indication  of  Bacon's  authorship. 
We  find  the  same  in  his  prose  works.  The  great 
philosopher,  notwithstanding  his  industry  and  his 
learning,  was  singularly  careless  in  some  of  the 
minutiae  of  his  work.  The  sublime  confidence  with 
which  he  employed  his  mental  powers  often  made  a 
"  sinner  of  his  memory."  It  was  simply  impossible, 
in  the  multiplicity  and  magnitude  of  his  productions, 
particularly  if  the  plays  be  superadded,   to   prevent 

garet's  time,  and  assigning  for  the  conduct  of  his  hero  motives 
which  we  know  did  not  exist.  In  the  '  Lay  of  the  Last  Minstrel '  the 
author  introduces  Sir  Michael  Scott,  a  wizard  who  flourished  four 
hundred  years  before. 

To  Lessing  belongs  the  honor  of  having  been  first  in  the  world  to 
appreciate  and  expound  the  true  genius  of  "  Shake-speare."  In  defi- 
ance of  the  whole  school  of  French  critics,  by  the  members  of  which 
"  Shake-speare  "  was  regarded  as  an  "inspired  idiot"  or  "drunken 
savage,"  he  declared  that  not  only  was  the  Englishman  superior  to 
Corneille,  Racine,  and  Voltaire,  but  that  he  was  the  originator  of  a  new 
method  of  writing  tragedy,  destined  to  overthrow  the  tyranny  of  the 
Greek.  That  is  to  say,  "  Shake-speare "  repudiated  the  ancient 
models  for  dramatization,  precisely  as  Bacon  did  for  science,  and 
with  equal  claims  to  a  complete  mastery. 


Errors  and  Anachronisms.  135 

unimportant  errors  from  creeping  in.  In  no  other 
way  can  we  account  for  the  false  quotation  from 
Solomon  in  the  "  Essay  of  Revenge,"  or  that  from 
Tacitus  in  the  "  Essay  of  Traditions."  The  gram- 
matical mistakes  in  the  Latin  entries  of  the  Promus, 
written  with  his  own  hand,  would  send  a  school-boy 
to  the  bottom  of  his  class,  but  they  put  a  tongue  in 
every  wound  of  syntax  found  in  the  plays. 

In  this  connection  it  may  not  be  amiss  to  quote  a 
few  of  Bacon's  "  Apothegms,"  with  Devey's  notes 
(Bonn's  standard  edition)  appended  to  them,  as 
follows:  — 

"  Michael  Angelo,  the  famous  painter,  made  one  of  the 
damned  souls  in  his  portraiture  of  hell  so  like  a  cardinal,  his 
enemy,  as  everybody  at  first  sight  knew  it.  Whereupon  the 
cardinal  complained  to  the  Pope,  humbly  praying  it  might  be 
effaced.  The  Pope  said  to  him,  '  Why,  you  know  very  well  I 
have  power  to  deliver  a  soul  out  of  purgatory,  but  not  out  of 
hell.' " 

The  victim  was  not  a  cardinal,  but  the  Pope's  mas- 
ter of  ceremonies. 

"  A  king  of  Hungary  took  a  bishop  in  battle,  and  kept  him 
prisoner.  Whereupon  the  Pope  writ  a  monitory  to  him,  for 
that  he  had  broken  the  privilege  of  holy  church  and  taken  his 
son.  The  king,  in  reply,  sent  the  armor  wherein  the  bishop 
was  taken,  and  this  only  in  writing,  '  Know  now  whether  this  be 
thy  son's  coat  ?  '  " 

It  was  Richard  Cceur  de  Lion  who  did  this,  and 
not  a  king  of  Hungary. 

"  Antigonus,  when  it  was  told  him  the  enemy  had  such  a 
volley  of  arrows  that  they  did  hide  the  sun,  said:  'That  falls 
out  well,  for  it  is  hot  weather,  and  so  we  shall  fight  in  the 
shade.' " 


136  Bacon  vs.  Shakspere. 

This  was  a  speech,  not  of  Antigonus,  but  of  a 
Spartan,  previously  to  the  battle  of  Thermopylae. 

"  One  of  the  seven  was  wont  to  say  that  laws  are  like  cob- 
webs, where  small  flies  are  caught,  but  the  great  break 
through." 

This  was  said,  not  by  a  Greek,  but  by  Anacharsis, 
the  Scythian. 

"  An  orator  of  Athens  said  to  Demosthenes,  '  The  Athenians 
will  kill  you  if  they  wax  mad.'  Demosthenes  replied,  'And  they 
will  kill  you  if  they  be  in  good  sense.'  " 

This  retort  was  made  to  Demosthenes  by  Phocion. 

"  Demetrius,  King  of  Macedon,  had  a  petition  offered  him 
divers  times  by  an  old  woman,  and  answered  that  he  had  no 
leisure.  Whereupon  the  woman  said  aloud,  '  Why,  then,  give 
over  to  be  king.'  " 

This  happened,  not  to  Demetrius,  but  to  Philip. 

"  A  philosopher  disputed  with  Adrian,  the  emperor,  and  did 
it  but  weakly.  One  of  his  friends,  that  stood  by,  afterwards 
said  to  him  :  '  Methinks  you  were  not  like  yourself  in  argument 
with  the  emperor.  I  could  have  answered  better  myself.' 
'  Why,'  said  the  philosopher,  '  would  you  have  me  contend  with 
him  that  commands  thirty  legions  ? '  " 

This  took  place,  not  under  Adrian,  but  under 
Augustus  Caesar. 

"  Chilon  said  that  kings'  friends  and  favorites  are  like  count- 
ers, that  sometimes  stand  for  one,  sometimes  for  ten,  and  some- 
times for  an  hundred." 

This  was  a  saying  of  Orontes. 

"  Alexander,  after  the  battle  of  Granicum,  had  very  great 
offers  made  to  him  by   Darius ;  consulting  with  his  captains 


Errors  and  Anachronisms.  137 

concerning  them,  Parmenio  said :  '  Sure,  I  would  accept  these 
offers,  if  I  were  Alexander.'  Alexander  answered:  'So  would 
I,  if  I  were  Parmenio.'  " 

This  happened  after  the  battle  of  Issus. 

The  above  are  gross  blunders,  and,  being  in  the 
domain  of  history,  they  are  far  more  astonishing  than 
any  found  in  the  dramas  of  "  Shake-speare."  Abbott 
testifies  on  this  point  as  follows :  — 

"We  have  abundant  proof  that  he  [Bacon]  was  eminently 
inattentive  to  details.1  His  scientific  works  are  full  of  inaccu- 
racies. King  James  found  in  this  defect  of  his  chancellor  the 
matter  for  a  witticism,  — '  De  minimis  non  curat  lex!1 "  2 

"  Inexhaustible  constructiveness,  —  that,  and  not  scientific 
patience  or  accuracy,  was  his  characteristic."  —  Prof.  Mintd's 
English  Prose  Composition,  p.  241. 

"  Bacon,  always  in  the  ancient  sense  a  magnificent,  was  never 
an  exact  man."  —  NichoVs  Life  of  Bacon,  p.  171. 

IV.  "  Shake-speare  "  and  Bacon  were  of  essentially  dif- 
ferent types  of  mind,  the  '  Novum  Organum  '  and  the  con- 
ception of  '  Fa  1 *  staff  being  respectively  at  opposite  poles,  a?id 
zvholly  beyond  the  range  of  one  man's  powers? 

Bacon's  mind  had  as  many  facets  as  a  diamond ; 
turn  it  whichever  way  you  will,  it  gives  a  flash.  No 
feature  of  it  was  more  conspicuous,  in  the  eyes  of  his 
contemporaries,  than  his  wit.  Indeed,  his  wit  was 
simply  prodigious.  Macaulay  asserts  that  in  this 
respect  he  "  never  had  an  equal." 

1  "  It  has  been  said  of  Shakespeare  that  he  had  a  fine  contempt 
for  details."  —  Quarterly  Review,  April,  1894. 

2  The  law  takes  no  notice  of  trifles. 

3  We  state  this  objection  substantially  as  given  to  us  by  the  late 
Francis  Parkman. 


138  Bacon  vs.  Shakspere. 

"  He  possessed  this  faculty,  or  this  faculty  possessed  him,  in 
a  morbid  degree.  When  he  abandoned  himself  to  it  without 
reserve,  as  he  did  in  '  Sapientia  Veterum,'  or  at  the  end  of  the 
second  book  of  '  De  Augmentis,'  the  feats  which  he  performed 
were  not  only  admirable,  but  portentous,  and  almost  shocking. 
On  those  occasions  we  marvel  at  him,  as  clowns  on  a  fair-day 
marvel  at  a  juggler,  and  can  hardly  help  thinking  that  the  devil 
must  be  in  him."  —  Macaulay. 

Bacon  had  also  a  sense  of  humor  that  must  have 
been  extraordinary,  for,  according  to  Ben  Jonson, 
he  could  with  difficulty,  even  on  solemn  occasions, 
"  spare  or  pass  by  a  jest."  We  find  some  admirable 
specimens  of  it  in  the  reports  of  his  conversations 
with  the  Queen,  —  his  powers  of  repartee  sometimes 
proving  more  than  a  match  for  her  imperious  will. 

It  seems  like  piling  Ossa  on  Pelion  to  add  that  the 
world's  most  famous  jest-book  we  owe  to  Francis 
Bacon,  dictated  by  him  from  a  sick-bed,  entirely 
from  memory,  in  one  day.1  No  wonder  the  portly 
Falstaff  sprang,  full-grown,  from  such  a  brain ! 

V.  The  author  of  the  '  Essay  on  Love  '  could  not  have 
written  '  Borneo  and  Juliet?  2 

The  two  productions  are  certainly  widely  dissimi- 
lar. In  one,  the  tender  passion  is  a  flower  in  bloom, 
exquisitely  sweet  and  beautiful ;  in  the  other,  it  is 
torn  up  by  the  roots  and  analyzed  scientifically,  not 
to  say  contemptuously.     Indeed,  Bacon  quotes  with 

1  "The  best  jest-book  ever  given  to  the  public." — Edinburgh 
Review. 

"  The  best  collection  of  jests  in  the  world."  —  Macaulay. 

2  Especially  urged  against  us  by  Mr.  Goldwin  Smith. 


Essay  on  Love.  1 39 

approval  an  old  saying,  that  a  man  cannot  love  and 
be  wise.1 

We  have  no  direct  evidence  to  show  that  the  au- 
thor of  the  essay  did  not  possess  a  susceptible  heart. 
To  be  sure,  he  was  married  late  (at  the  age  of  forty- 
five),  and  was  unfortunate  in  losing  the  affections  of 
his  wife  before  he  died.  It  may  be  worthy  of  note, 
also,  that  the  play  was  written  several  years  before, 
and  the  essay  several  years  after,  his  marriage.  We 
cannot  admit,  however,  in  any  view  of  his  matrimonial 
adventure,  that  he  was  disqualified  to  write  the  garden 
scene  in  '  Romeo  and  Juliet.'  It  is  not  necessary  to 
possess  a  trait  in  order  to  depict  it.  "  Shakespeare's 
admiration  of  the  great  men  of  action  is  immense," 
says  Professor  Dowden,  "because  he  himself  was  pri- 
marily not  a  man  of  action."  We  instinctively  see 
and  appreciate  what  is  exactly  opposite  to  us  in 
mental  aptitudes.     Human  nature  makes  an  uncon- 

1  Shake-speare  makes  the  same  quotation  :  — 

"  To  be  wise  and  love 
Exceeds  man's  might;  that  dwells  with  gods  above." 

Troihts  and  Cressida,  III.  2. 

"  The  tendency  of  love,  of  which  Bacon  speaks,  to  '  trouble  a  man's 
fortunes,  and  make  him  untrue  to  his  own  ends,'  is  most  forcibly  illus- 
trated in  the  character  of  Proteus,  who  contrasts  his  slavery  as  a  lover 
with  Valentine's  freedom  as  a  student,  thus  :  — 

'  He  after  honor  hunts,  I  after  love; 
He  leaves  his  friends  to  dignify  them  more, 
I  leave  myself,  my  friend,  and  all  for  love. 
Thou,  Julia,  thou  hast  metamorphosed  me, 
Made  me  neglect  my  studies,  lose  my  time, 
War  with  good  counsel,  set  the  world  at  naught, 
Made  wit  with  musing  weak,  heart  sick  with  thought.'  " 

Two  Gentlemen  of  Verona,  I.  i. 

R.  M.  Theobald. 


140  Bacon  vs.  Shakspere. 

scious  effort  in  this  way  to  round  itself  out  into  the 
complete  and  perfect.  The  theory  of  complementary 
colors  is  based  on  this  tendency.  Unity  in  diversity 
is  the  ideal  of  married  life.  Tom  Hood  was  the  wit- 
tiest of  men,  and  at  the  same  time  one  of  the  most 
melancholy.  The  president  of  a  New  England  theo- 
logical seminary,  who  was  very  penurious,  preached 
the  ablest  sermon  of  his  life  on  charity.  The  people 
of  Scotland  are  notoriously  intemperate  every  Satur- 
day night ;  it  is  said  that  thirty  thousand  persons  get 
drunk  at  that  time  in  the  city  of  Glasgow  alone;  and 
yet  the  finest  idyl  in  our  language,  consecrated  to  the 
domestic  peace  and  religious  sanctity  of  that  season, 
we  owe  to  a  Scottish  poet,  himself  in  full  accord  with 
the  habits  of  his  countrymen. 

"  In  '  Venus  and  Adonis '  the  goddess,  after  the  death  of  her 
favorite,  utters  a  curse  upon  love  which  contains  in  the  germ, 
as  it  were,  the  whole  development  of  the  subject  as  Shakespeare 
has  unfolded  it  in  the  series  of  his  dramas."  —  Gervinus. 

"  Shakespeare  manifests  a  total  insensibility  to  the  gross 
passion  of  love.  In  descriptions  of  Platonic  affection  and  con- 
ventional gallantry  he  is  unsurpassed ;  but  when  he  essays  to 
be  personally  tender  his  muse  becomes  tediously  perfunctory, 
as  we  see  it  in  '  Hamlet.'  Then  his  intense  abhorrence  of  in- 
temperance and  personal  defilement  is  another  proof  of  super- 
animal  organization,  in  which  he  seems  to  stand  alone.  In 
what  other  author  of  the  time  do  we  read  anything  like  his 
intense  loathing  of  them  which  we  find  in  'Antony  and 
Cleopatra '  ?  — 

'  To  sit 

And  keep  the  turn  of  tippling  with  a  slave ! 

To  reel  the  streets  at  noon,  and  stand  the  buffet 

With  knaves  that  smell  of  sweat.'  —  I.  4. 

"It  may  be  said  that  his  love  of  music,  of  flowers,  and  of 
perfume  was   a  wholly   sensuous   love ;    but   he   associates  it 


Dramatic   Tastes.  141 

with  sublime  ideas,  which  animal  natures  never  do,  as  in  the 
following:  — 

'  That  strain  again ;  it  had  a  dying  fall. 
O  !  it  came  o'er  my  ear  like  the  sweet  south 
That  breathes  upon  a  bank  of  violets, 
Stealing  and  giving  odor.' —  Twelfth  Night,  I.  I." 

Thomas  W.  White's  Our  English  Homer,  p.  123. 

"  Shake-speare's  "  ability  to  assume  any  character 
—  a  Romeo,  a  Falstaff,  an  Iago  —  without  regard  to 
his  own  private  sentiments,  itself  deprives  the  above 
objection  of  pertinency  and  force. 

VI.  The  author  of  the  plays  had  a  thorough  practical 
knowledge  of  dramatic  art  that  could  have  been  derived,  in 
part  at  least,  only  from  experience  in  stage  management. 

We  are  now  on  William  Shakspere's  own  ground ; 
for  not  only  did  he  tread  the  boards  himself,  but  he 
was  a  successful  manager  of  one  or  two  theatres. 
That  Francis  Bacon  also  had  a  penchant  for  the  busi- 
ness will  appear  from  three  considerations,  to  wit : 

1.  He  possessed  the  temperament  that  fits  one  for 
it.  On  this  point  we  summon  a  pen-and-ink  artist  of 
exceptional  abilities  to  testify,  as  follows :  — 

"  Slight  in  build,  rosy  and  round  in  flesh,  dight  in  a  sumptu- 
ous suit ;  the  head  well-set,  erect,  and  framed  in  a  thick  starched 
fence  of  frills ;  a  bloom  of  study  and  travel  on  the  fat,  girlish 
face,  which  looks  far  younger  than  his  years ;  the  hat  and 
feather  tossed  aside  from  the  broad,  white  forehead,  over  which 
crisps  and  curls  a  mane  of  dark,  soft  hair ;  an  English  nose, 
firm,  open,  straight ;  mouth,  delicate  and  small,  —  a  lady's  or 
a  jester's  mouth,  —  a  thousand  pranks  and  humors,  quibbles, 
whims,  and  laughters,  lurking  in  its  twinkling,  tremulous  lines : 
such  is  Francis  Bacon  at  the  age  of  twenty-four."  —  Dixon 's 
Personal  History  of  Lord  Bacon,  p.  25. 


142  Bacon  vs.  Shakspere. 

2.  Bacon  was  prominent  in  the  dramatic  revels  at 
Gray's  Inn  and  before  the  Court.  According  to 
Chamberlain  (who  wrote  in  1613),  he  was  the  "  chief 
contriver  "  of  them.  Anthony's  tastes  in  this  direc- 
tion were  so  strong  that  he  removed  his  residence  to 
the  neighborhood  of  the  Bull  Inn  for  better  oppor- 
tunities to  gratify  them.1  That  his  brother  shared 
the  same  indulgence  we  cannot  doubt,  for  the  two 
were  involved  in  a  common  censure  from  their 
mother  on  account  of  it ;  and  when  Francis  rode  in 
state  through  the  streets  to  take  his  seat  for  the  first 
time  on  the  woolsack,  the  players  turned  out  en  masse 
to  do  him  honor. 

"It  is  said  that  William  Shakespeare  once  played  before 
Queen  Elizabeth.  There  is  no  record  of  it  in  the  Court  minutes, 
though  we  cannot  find  that  any  of  that  period  have  been  lost. 
There  's  a  record,  however,  that  Francis  Bacon  did.  Feb.  8, 
1587,  certain  gentlemen  of  Gray's  Inn,  Bacon  among  them,  per- 
formed before  Her  Majesty  a  play  called  '  The  Misfortunes  of 
Arthur.'  which  surely  no  one  can  read  without  being  impressed 
with  its  resemblance  to  what  men  call,  nowadays,  the  Shake- 
spearean gait  and  movement."  —  Appleton  Morgan. 

"There  is  one  play,  'The  Misfortunes  of  Arthur,'  in  the  pro- 
duction of  which  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  Francis  Bacon  had 
a  share.  In  the  old  record  of  this  play  he  is  only  credited  with 
having  contributed  the  '  dumb  shows ; '  but  in  certain  passages 
and  scenes  there  appear  the  same  peculiarities  of  expression 
and  thought  as  have  been  found  to  connect  the  Shakespeare 
plays  with  entries  in  the  Promus.  It  seems  easy  to  distinguish 
the  pages  which  have  been  illuminated  and  beautified  by  his 
hand."  —  Mrs.  Henry  Pott,  Promus,  p.  90. 

"  Unless  we  much  mistake,  there  is  a  richer  and  nobler  vein 
of  poetry  running  through  it  than  is  to  be  found  in  any  previous 
work  of  the  kind."  —  J.  P.  Collier. 

1  The  "  Shake-speare  "  plays  were  then  running  there. 


Dramatic   Tastes.  143 

3.  Bacon  regarded  the  drama  as  an  educational 
instrumentality  of  the  highest  value.  He  says 
of  it :  — 

"  Although  in  modern  states  play-acting  is  esteemed  but  as  a 
ludicrous  thing,  except  when  it  is  too  satirical  and  biting,  yet 
among  the  ancients  it  became  a  means  of  forming  the  souls  of 
men  to  virtue.  Even  the  wise  and  prudent,  and  great  philoso- 
phers, considered  it  to  be,  as  it  were,  the  plectrum  of  the  mind. 
And  most  certainly,  what  is  one  of  the  secrets  of  nature,  the 
minds  of  men,  when  assembled  together,  are  more  open  to 
affections  and  impressions  than  when  they  are  alone." 

In  the  second  book  of  the  '  Advancement  of  Learn- 
ing,' he  recommends  that  dramatic  art  be  included 
in  the  regular  curriculum  of  schools. 

After  all,  the  plays  are  not  such  as  a  business 
manager,  intent  on  making  money  and  indifferent  to 
literary  fame,  would  write  for  his  theatre.  Some  of 
them  are  impracticable  on  account  of  their  length ; 
they  always  have  to  be  cut  for  public  use.  Others 
are  too  philosophical.  How  long  would  the  gods  of 
the  pit  endure  '  Troilus  and  Cressida,'  full  as  it  is  of 
the  profoundest  wisdom,  and  wholly  unsuited  even 
now  for  popular  presentation?  Others,  still,  are  the 
outcome  of  successive  revisions,  growing  more  and 
more  fitted  for  the  closet,  less  and  less  for  the  stage. 
Taken  together,  these  writings  seem  to  be  the  pro- 
ductions of  a  man  who  had  high  subjective  ideals, 
who  sought  relief  in  them  from  severer  studies,  and 
who  made  pecuniary  results  a  secondary  consider- 
ation. 

"  Every  genuine  work  of  art  has  as  much  reason  for  being  as 
the  earth  and  the  sea.  The  Iliad  of  Homer,  the  songs  of 
David,  the  odes  of  Pindar,  the  tragedies  of  ^Eschylus,  the  Doric 


144  Bacon  vs.  Shakspere. 

temples,  the  Gothic  cathedrals,  the  plays  of  Shakespeare,  all 
and  each  were  made  not  for  sport,  but  in  grave  earnest,  in  tears 
and  smiles  of  suffering  and  loving  men." — Emerson's  Essay 
on  Art. 

The  opposite  view,  that  the  plays  were  written  solely 
for  the  theatre  and  for  money,  leads  Richard  Grant 
White  to  the  following  re  duetto  ad  absurdum :  — 

"All  that  we  know  of  his  [Shakspere's]  life  and  of  his 
domestic  career  leaves  us  no  room  for  doubt  that,  if  his  public 
had  preferred  it,  he  would  have  written  thirty-seven  plays  like 
'  Titus  Anaronicus,'  just  as  readily,  though  not  as  willingly, 
as  he  wrote  'As  You  Like  It,'  'King  Lear,'  'Hamlet,'  and 
'  Othello.'  "  —  Shakespeare  Studies,  p.  20. 

"He  wrote  what  he  wrote  merely  to  fill  the  theatre  and  his 
own  pockets."  —  Ibid.,  p.  209. 

We  find  the  same  degrading  sentiment  in  one  who 
was  still  more  unjust  to  Bacon  :  — 

"  For  gain,  not  glory,  wing'd  his  roving  flight, 
And  grew  immortal  in  his  own  despite." 

Pope. 

"  It  has  been  frequently  observed  that,  if  this  view  be  ac- 
cepted, it  is  at  the  expense  of  investing  him  [Shakespeare]  with 
a  mean  and  sordid  disposition."  —  Halliwell-Phillipps. 

Such  is  the  inevitable  consequence  of  attempting 
to  make  the  facts  of  Shakspere's  life  fit  the  writings  of 
"  Shake-speare."  Messrs.  White  and  Halliwell-Phil- 
lipps are,  perhaps,  our  two  best  authorities  on  the 
Shakspere  side  of  the  question,  and  they  would  have 
us  believe  that  the  noblest  productions  of  the  human 
mind  are  the  offspring  of  vulgarity  as  well  as  of 
ignorance. 

But  there  is  still  a  deeper  depth  of  absurdity,  and 
Mr.  White  does  not  hesitate  to  make  the  plunge :  — 


K7iow ledge  of  Warwickshire.  145 

"  He  had  as  much  deliberate  purpose  in  his  breathing  as  in 
his  play-writing."  —  Studies  in  Shakespeare,  p.  209. 

No  wonder  that  Mr.  White  pronounces  Shakspere 
a  "miraculous  miracle,"  or,  in  other  words  (as  care- 
fully defined  by  him),  a  miracle  that  is  not  a  miracle! 
It  is  almost  shocking  to  see  an  able  man  driven  by 
inexorable  logic  to  such  an  extremity. 

VII.  The  author  of  the  plays  had  intimate  knowledge  of 
persons  and  localities  in  the  neighborhood  of  Stratford,  and 
of  certain  peculiarities  of  speech  prevailing  there. 

The  local  references,  on  which  the  first  part  of  the 
above  statement  is  based,  are  mostly  found  in  the 
Induction  to  the  play  of  '  The  Taming  of  the  Shrew.' 
The  localities  mentioned  there  are  Wincot  and  Bur- 
ton-Heath. The  former  is  probably  Wilmecote,  a 
hamlet  near  Stratford,  and  the  latter,  Barton-on-the- 
Heath,  a  small  town  in  the  extreme  southwestern 
part  of  the  county.  There  are  other  Wincots  in 
England,  but  the  one  distinguished  as  having  been 
the  residence  of  Marian  Hacket  can  hardly  be  mis- 
taken, on  account  of  its  comparative  proximity  to 
Sly's  birthplace.  The  tradition  that  Shakspere  was 
accustomed  to  make  the  buxom  ale-wife's  premises 
his  favorite  place  of  resort  required  two  hundred 
years  to  get  itself  into  print,  and  is  doubtless 
apocryphal. 

These  local  allusions  are  explainable  on  one  of  two 
grounds,  to  wit :  — 

1.  In  1598  Bacon  rendered  a  great  service  to  the 
crown.  He  introduced  into  the  House  of  Commons, 
of  which  body  he  was  the  acknowledged  leader,  a 
bill  to  arrest  decay  of  tillage,  by  requiring  all  land- 

10 


146  Bacon  vs.  Shakspere. 

owners  to  restore  to  the  plough,  within  eighteen 
months  from  the  date  of  the  passage  of  the  act,  every 
acre  of  land  that  had  been  taken  from  it  and  given 
to  pasturage  since  the  beginning  of  the  Queen's 
reign,  a  period  of  forty  years.  The  bill  itself  was 
a  high-handed  procedure,  in  clear  violation  of  the 
principles  of  political  economy  as  now  understood, 
but  made  necessary  at  that  time  in  order  to  counter- 
act the  influence  of  another  absurd  piece  of  legisla- 
tion, under  which  products  of  pasturage  could  be 
exported  for  sale,  while  those  of  tillage  could  not. 
The  Commons  supported  Bacon  enthusiastically,  but 
the  Lords,  Essex  among  them,1  resisted.  A  parlia- 
mentary battle  followed,  with  Coke  at  the  head  of  the 
barons  and  Bacon  at  the  head  of  the  burgesses.  The 
result  was  the  triumphant  passage  of  the  bill,  and  a 
royal  grant  to  its  champion  of  a  valuable  lease  at 
Cheltenham,  twenty-five  miles  from  Stratford,  and 
twenty  from  Barton-on-the-Heath. 

Furthermore,  in  1606,  Bacon  married  a  step-daugh- 
ter of  Sir  John  Packington,  whose  residence  was 
within  an  easy  drive  in  another  direction  from  Strat- 
ford. He  was  also  connected  by  marriage  with  Sir 
Thomas  Lucy  of  Charlecote,  in  the  immediate  vicinity 
of  Stratford.  It  would  be  very  remarkable  if  under 
these  circumstances  Bacon  did  not  become  familiar 
with  the  valley  of  the  Avon,  in  the  branches  of  which 
all  the  above-mentioned  places,  with  the  exception 
of  Barton-on-the-Heath,  are  situated. 

2.  '  The  Taming  of  the    Shrew  '   is  one   of  those 

1  Essex  took  great  pains  to  place  himself  in  opposition  to  Bacon, 
coming  to  London  expressly  for  the  purpose.  The  breach  between 
them  had  been  widening  for  two  or  three  years. 


Warwickshire  Provincialisms.         147 

plays  in  the  Shakespearean  canon  with  the  composi- 
tion of  which  "  Shake-speare  "  himself  is  generally- 
considered  to  have  had  little  to  do.  The  question  is 
an  open  one.  Critics  divide  on  it,  not  only  as  to 
what  part  of  it  he  actually  wrote,  but  whether  he 
wrote  any  part  whatever.  Richard  Grant  White  sums 
up  the  case  as  follows :  — 

"  In  my  opinion  it  is  the  joint  production  of  Greene,  Mar- 
lowe, and  possibly  Shakespeare,  who  seem  to  have  worked 
together  for  the  Earl  of  Pembroke's  servants  during  the  first 
three  years  of  Shakespeare's  London  life.  Much  the  greater 
part  of  it  appears  to  have  been  the  work  of  Greene ;  Marlowe 
probably  but  little,  and  Shakespeare,  if  at  all,  much  less."  — 
Ed.  of  Shakespeare' s  Works,  IV.  391. 

The  nativity  of  the  author  has  also  been  inferred 
from  the  use  in  the  plays  of  words  peculiar  to  the 
dialect  of  Warwickshire.  Mr.  Wise  devoted  a  chap- 
ter to  this  subject  in  his  book  '  Shakespeare  :  his 
Birthplace  and  its  Neighborhood ;  '  but  Professor 
Langlin,  whose  scholarly  criticism  in  this  field  of  re- 
search commands  our  confidence,  has  published  the 
following  conclusions  in  a  review  of  it :  — 

"  I  have  been  led  to  examine  his  [Wise's]  list  of  alleged  pro- 
vincialisms of  Shakespeare,  and  am  much  surprised  to  find  how 
very  uncertain  is  their  evidence  as  to  the  actual  locality  in 
which  the  writer  really  lived.  Wise's  argument  proves  too 
much,  and  therefore,  in  my  opinion,  proves  nothing."  —  SJiake- 
speariana,  I.  185. 

A  partial  glossary  of  Warwickshire  provincialisms 
has  been  compiled  by  Dr.  Appleton  Morgan,  and 
subjected  to  a  critical  analysis  in  the  columns  of  the 
"  London  Daily  Telegraph  "  by  Mrs.  Henry  Pott,  with 
results  as  follows  :  — 


148  Bacon  vs.  Shakspere. 

1.  "Of  the  518  words  enumerated,  there  are  46  only  which 
are  not  so  current  in  Surrey,  Kent,  Sussex,  Wiltshire,  Hamp- 
shire, Lincolnshire,  and  Leicestershire  (and  perhaps  in  any  other 
English  county)  as  they  are  in  Warwickshire." 

2.  "  Of  the  46  which  we  do  not  recognize  as  common  to  the 
southern  and  eastern  counties,  not  one  is  to  be  found  in  Shake- 
speare." 

VIII.  Contemporaneous  testimony  establishes  the  identity 
of  Shakspere  the  actor  and  "Shakespeare  "  the  dramatist. 

Under  this  head  four  persons  only  can  be  sum- 
moned as  witnesses.  They  are  John  Heminge,  Henry 
Condell,  Leonard  Digges,  and  Ben  Jonson.1  The 
first  two  were  fellow-actors  with  Shakspere  on  the 
stage.  They  were  also  beneficiaries  under  his  will, 
receiving  each  a  ring.  In  strict  accord  with  these 
known  facts,  and  in  flat  contradiction  to  our  theory 
of  the  origin  of  the  plays,  they  declare,  in  the  preface 
to  the  first  folio  (of  which  they  were  at  least  nominal 
editors),  that  the  author  was  their  friend,  and  that  he 
was  not  then  living.  Unfortunately  for  their  reputa- 
tion for  sincerity,  however,  they  also  declare,  in  the 
'  Address  to  Readers  '  which  follows  the  preface,  that 
they  had  in  their  hands  the  author's  own  manuscripts 
(the  appearance  of  which  they  describe),  and  that 
they  were  thus  enabled  to  substitute,  for  the  stolen 
and  mutilated  individual  quartos,  a  collective  version 
absolutely  perfect  in  all  its  parts.     Everybody  knows 

1  "  I  own  at  once  that  those  evidences  are  scanty ;  .  .  .  there  are 
but  four  [contemporaries]  who  directly  identify  the  man  or  the  actor 
with  the  writer  of  the  plays."  —  Iugleby's  Essays,  p.  24  (1888). 

In  this  list  we  substitute  Digges  for  Chettle,  for  reasons  which  will 
fully  appear  in  the  text. 


Heminge,  Condell  and  Digges.  149 

that  these  last  statements  are  untrue.  The  book  they 
printed  contains  on  an  average  about  twenty  errors 
to  the  page,  or  twenty  thousand  in  all.  In  some 
places  poetry  is  printed  as  prose;  in  others,  gems, 
sparkling  with  thought  in  the  quartos,  are  omitted ; 
in  others  still,  names  of  actors  are  given  instead  of 
those  of  the  dramatis  persona,  showing  that  in  such 
cases  they  followed  copies  that  had  been  previously 
used  in  the  theatre,  and  followed  them,  too,  "  out  of 
the  window."  On  the  ground  of  insincerity,  there- 
fore, we  must  ask  Messrs.  Heminge  and  Condell  to 
step  down  from  the  witness-stand ;  we  cannot  accept 
their  testimony  even  under  oath. 

"  I  suppose  that  I  must,  in  the  next  place,  cite  the  ostensible 
editors  of  the  first  collection  of  Shakespeare's  works,  .  .  .  but, 
unfortunately  for  their  credit  and  our  own  satisfaction,  their 
prefatory  statement  contains,  or  at  least  suggests,  what  they 
must  have  known  to  be  false."  —  Dr.  Ingleby. 

The  next  witness  is  Leonard  Digges,  also  one  of 
the  immortal  few  who  helped,  with  poetic  lubrica- 
tions, to  launch  the  first  folio  upon  the  public.  He 
testifies  distinctly  that  the  author  of  the  plays  had 
had  a  monument  erected  to  his  memory  at  Stratford : 

"  Shake-speare,  at  length  thy  pious  fellows  give, 
The  world  thy  works ;  thy  works,  by  which,  out-live 
Thy  tomb,  thy  name  must ;  when  that  stone  is  rent, 
And  time  dissolves  thy  Stratford  monument, 
Here  we  alive  shall  view  thee  still.     This  book, 
When  brass  and  marble  fade,  shall  make  thee  look 
Fresh  to  all  ages."  Leonard  Digges. 

The  following  verses,  written  by  Digges,  were  also 
intended,  it  is  said,  to  accompany  the  above  in  the 


150  Bacon  vs.  Shakspere. 

introduction  to  the  first  folio,  but  are  found  prefixed 
to  a  volume  of  the  Shake-speare  poems  printed  in 
1640: — 

"  Next,  Nature  only  helped  him  ;  for  look  thorough 
This  whole  book,  thou  shalt  find  he  doth  not  borrow 
One  phrase  from  Greeks,  nor  Latins  imitate, 
Nor  once  from  vulgar  languages  translate, 
Nor,  plagiary-like,  from  others  glean, 
Nor  begs  he  from  each  witty  friend  a  scene 
To  piece  his  acts  with  :  all  that  he  doth  write 
Is  pure  his  own ;  plot,  language  exquisite." 

Mr.  White,  who  was  an  unmitigated  Shaksperean, 
stands  aghast  at  these  lines,  wholly  unable  to  account 
for  what  he  calls  the  "sad  blunder"  in  them.  Was 
the  witty  Digges  really  so  ignorant  ? : 

It  will  be  noticed  that  the  entire  quartette  of  these 
witnesses  including  Ben  Jonson) 2  were  engaged, 
either  as  editors  or  contributors,  in  the  printing  of  the 
first  folio.  //  is  impossible  to  name  a  single  person, 
taking  no  part  in  this  symposium  of  wit,  who  can  be 
quoted  as  authority  on  the  point  at  issue. 

We  are  well  aware  that  Henry  Chettle  is  said  by 
all  but  two  of  the  Shaksperean  commentators  of 
the  last  one  hundred  years  to  have  testified  to  the 
literary  ability  of  Shakspere  the  actor,  and  thus  indi- 
rectly identified  him  with  the  dramatist.  The  facts 
of  the  case  do  not  warrant  any  such  conclusion. 
Chettle  was  editor  of  a  posthumous  pamphlet,  en- 
titled a  '  Groatsworth  of  Wit,'  by  Robert  Greene. 
He  was  also  author  of  '  Kind  Heart's  Dream,'  a  book 
published  later    in   the    same  year   (1592).     In   the 

1  Digges  was  known  as  a  "wit  of  the  town." 

2  For  a  discussion  of  Jonson's  testimony,  see  p.  91  et  seq. 


Chettle  s   Testimony.  1 5 1 

preface  to  the  latter  work  he  apologizes  to  some  one 
who  had  taken  offence  at  certain  personal  allusions 
in  Greene's  pamphlet,  and  held  him,  as  editor,  re- 
sponsible for  them. 

We  quote  from  the  pamphlet  as  follows  :  — 

"  To  those  gentlemen,  his  quondam  acquaintance,  that  spend 
their  wits  in  making  plays,  R.  G.  wisheth  a  better  exercise  and 
wisdom  to  prevent  his  extremities.  .  .  .  Base-minded  men,  all 
three  of  you,  if  by  my  misery  you  be  not  warned ;  for  unto  none 
of  you  (like  me)  sought  those  burrs  to  cleave ;  those  puppets,  I 
mean,  that  speak  from  our  mouths,  those  antics  garnished  in 
our  colors.  .  .  .  Yes,  trust  them  not ;  for  there  is  an  upstart 
crow,  beautified  with  our  feathers,  that,  with  his  tiger's  heart 
wrapped  in  a  player's  hide,  supposes  he  is  as  well  able  to 
bombast  out  a  blank  verse  as  the  best  of  you,  and  being  an 
absolute  Johannes  Factotti/n,  is,  in  his  own  conceit,  the  only 
Shake-scene  in  a  country." 

That  the  putative  author  of  the  "  Shake-speare  " 
dramas  is  referred  to  in  the  closing  sentence  of  the 
above,  there  can  be  little  doubt ;  because  of  the 
parody,  not  only  on  the  name,  but  also  on  a  line  in 
the  third  part  of  '  King  Henry  VI.,  "  O  tiger's  lie  art, 
tvrapped  in  a  woman's  hide!"  It  is  conceded,  also, 
that  the  character  of  the  reference  was  such  as  would 
naturally  cause  offence.  But  was  Shakspere  one  of 
those  whom  Chettle  represents  as  offended,  and  to 
whom,  as  the  biographers  claim,  he  apologizes  in 
commendatory  terms?  On  this  point  we  quote  from 
Chettle  himself,  in  the  preface  above  mentioned : 
"  Among  others  his  '  Groatsworth  of  Wit,'  in  which  a 
letter,  written  to  divers  play-makers,  is  offensively  by 
one  or  two  of  them  taken."  One  or  two  of  whom? 
Evidently,   of   the   play-makers   (Marlowe,    Nash   or 


152  Bacon  vs.  Shakspere. 

Lodge,  and  Peele,  it  is  said),  who  had  been  addressed 
by  Greene,  who  had  been  warned  against  the  Johannes 
Factotum,  and  who  had  themselves  been  characterized 
elsewhere  in  the  pamphlet,  one  as  an  atheist  and  an- 
other as  a  blasphemer  and  drunkard.  Chettle  then 
goes  on  to  say :  — 

"With  neither  of  them  that  take  offence  was  I  acquainted, 
and  with  one  of  them  I  care  not  if  I  never  be ;  the  other  whom 
at  that  time  I  did  not  so  much  spare  as  since  I  wish  I  had  .  .  . 
because  myself  have  seen  his  demeanor  no  less  civil  than  he, 
excellent  in  the  quality  he  professes  ;  besides,  divers  of  worship 
have  reported  his  uprightness  of  dealing,  which  argues  his 
honesty,  and  his  facetious  grace  in  writing  that  approves  his 
art." 

It  is  very  remarkable  that  of  all  the  biographers  of 
Shakspere,  so  far  as  noted,  Frederick  Gard  Fleay 
alone  states  this  matter  correctly,  thus :  — 

"  In  December,  Chettle  issued  his  '  Kind  Heart's  Dream,'  in 
which  he  apologizes  for  the  offence  given  to  Marlowe  in  the 
'  Groatsworth  of  Wit,'  'because  myself  have  seen  his  demeanor,' 
etc.  To  Peele  he  makes  no  apology,  nor  indeed  was  any  re- 
quired. Shakespeare  was  not  one  of  those  who  took  offence ; 
they  are  expressly  stated  to  have  been  two  of  the  authors 
addressed  by  Green ;  the  third  (Lodge)  not  being  in  England." 
—  Chronicle  History  of  the  Life  and  Works  of  William  Shake- 
speare, p.  in. 

Even  Dr.  Ingleby  admits  that  Chettle's  commenda- 
tory words  cannot  be  applied  to  Shakspere  without 
a  violation  of  the  text.  It  is  necessary,  he  says,  to 
interpolate  a  few  words,  to  the  effect  that  Greene 
wrote  his  letter  to  divers  playwrights,  his  friends  and 
associates,  and  against  another,  his  avowed  enemy, 
and  that  two  of  these,  including  the  latter,  took 
offence ! 


Composite  Authorship.  153 

That  is  to  say,  for  the  purpose  of  saving  Chettle's 
testimony  to  Shakspere,  he  would  not  only  fabricate 
proofs  in  support  of  it,  but  reduce  the  whole  passage 
to  nonsense.  This  would  only  add  another,  however, 
to  the  fourteen  deliberate  forgeries  already  uttered  at 
various  times  in  behalf  of  the  legendary  dramatist. 
No  wonder  that  Dr.  Ingleby  finally  confesses,  in 
despair,  that  contemporary  evidence  on  this  point  is 
"  contemporary  rumour,"  and  that  he  attaches  "  little 
weight"  to  it! 

For  further  elucidation  of  this  subject,  see  '  The 
Athenaeum,'  Feb.  7,  1874.  An  intelligent  writer, 
himself  a  Shaksperean,  there  contends  that  the  two 
who  took  offence  were  Marlowe  and  Nash.  It  is 
certain,  he  says,  that  "  Shakespeare  was  not  one  of 
them." 

IX.  The  theory  of  composite  authorship  can  alone  account 
for  the  wide  diversity  of  talents  exhibited  in  the  plays. 

The  objections  to  the  above  are  twofold :  — 
1.  It  has  no  external  evidence,  direct  or  circum- 
stantial, in  its  favor. 

The  difficulty  of  believing  that  one  man  could  have 
written  the  plays  and  been  restrained  by  prudential 
considerations  from  acknowledging  them,  even  with 
the  concession  that  he  had  other  and,  in  his  own 
opinion,  higher  claims  to  fame,  is  very  great;  but  it 
vanishes  in  the  light  of  this  composite  theory.  That 
so  important  a  secret  should  have  been  shared  on 
equal  terms  by  several  persons,  and  no  hint  of  it 
escape  in  any  direction,  while  then,  as  now,  every 
friend  had  a  friend,  and  every  friend's  friend  had  a 
friend,  is  simply  incredible. 


154  Bacon  vs.  Shakspere. 

2.  The  theory  is  inconsistent  with  the  unique  char- 
acter of  the  plays. 

The  Shake-spearean  "  gait  and  movement,"  wher- 
ever it  may  be  found,  is  unmistakable.  Indeed,  if  the 
pages  of  the  first  folio  were  so  many  stone  slabs  taken 
from  an  ancient  river-bed,  they  could  not  bear  clearer 
marks  of  the  stride  of  a  colossus.  No  play  in  the 
canon  is  without  these  giant  footprints. 

"  The  stamp  of  a  mighty  genius  is  impressed  on  them  all."  — 
SchlegeL 

"  No  one  ever  yet  produced  one  scene  conceived  and  ex- 
pressed in  the  Shakespearean  idiom,"  —  Coleridge's  Table- 
Talk^  p.  214. 

"  He  is  not  only  superior  in  degree,  but  he  is  also  different  in 
kind.  .  .  .  We  never  saw  a  line  in  any  modern  poet  that  re- 
minded us  of  him."  —  Lowell's  Ainong  My  Books,  p.  180. 

"  Upon  the  most  insignificant  of  Shakespeare's  beauties  there 
is  an  impress  stamped  which  to  all  the  world  proclaims,  '  I  am 
Shakespeare's.' "  —  Lessing. 

What  is  it,  then,  that  the  advocates  of  this  com- 
posite theory  ask  us  to  believe?  It  is  this:  that 
there  lived  at  one  time,  in  one  country  and  in  inti- 
mate personal  association,  several  poets,  not  only 
greater  than  any  that  lived  in  the  world  before  them, 
and  greater  than  any  that  have  lived  since,  but  so 
similar  in  literary  style,  in  character,  and  in  intellect- 
ual development  that  it  is  impossible  to  distinguish 
one  from  another  in  their  work.  Not  only  this,  but 
we  must  also  believe  that  these  men,  while  exhibiting 
transcendent  powers  of  genius  in  dramas  which  they 
published  under  the  common  pseudonym  of  "  Shake- 
speare,"  were  all  of  them  at  the  same  time  writing 


Shakespeare s  Dark  Period.  155 

and  publishing  over  their  own  names  other  poetical 
works  which  James  Russell  Lowell  declared  to  be  in 
every  instance  "  immeasurably  inferior "  to  those 
known  as  "  Shake-speare's."  Juliet's  prayer  that 
Romeo  at  his  death  might  be  cut  out  in  little  stars 
and 

"  make  the  face  of  heaven  so  fine 
That  all  the  world  will  be  in  love  with  night," 

was  an  extravagant  hyperbole ;  but  what  shall  we 
say  of  those  who,  out  of  "  Shake-speare,"  would 
create  blazing  suns? 

X.  Shakspere 's  life  furnishes  the  key  to  the  writings  that 
bear  his  name. 

Critics  who  take  this  view  simply  hug  their  chains 
to  keep  them  from  clanking.  Coleridge,  Emerson, 
Schlegel,  Whipple,  Hallam,  Furness,  all  substantially 
agree  that  (in  the  language  of  one  of  them)  the  life 
of  William  Shakspere  and  the  writings  ascribed  to 
him  cannot  be  brought  "  within  a  planetary  space  of 
each  other."  Professor  Swing  was  convinced  that 
Shakspere  must,  at  least,   "  have  kept  a  poet." 

If  we  come  to  particulars,  the  case  is  even  worse. 
Everybody  admits  that  in  or  about  the  year  1600  a 
change  came  over  the  dramatist's  spirit.  He  then 
sought,  as  Professor  Dowden  remarks,  to  "  appre- 
hend life  adequately."  He  fell  "  into  the  shadow  of 
some  of  the  deep  mysteries  of  human  existence." 
"  Somehow,"  a  new  relation  "  between  his  soul  and 
the  dark  and  terrible  forces  of  the  world  "  began  to 
exist.     How  can  this  be  explained  from  anything  in 


156  Bacon  vs.  Shakspere. 

the  life  of  the  man  Shakspere?  How  can  we  account, 
consistently  with  what  we  know  of  him,  for  this  sud- 
den and  stupendous  sweep  of  mind  from  Falstaff  and 
Romeo  to  '  Othello,' 1 '  Macbeth,'  and  '  Lear '  ?  "  Shak- 
spere had  by  this  time,"  we  are  told,  "  mastered  the 
world  from  a  practical  point  of  view ;  he  was  a  pros- 
perous and  wealthy  man."  Yes,  he  was  buying 
houses  and  lands,  bringing  suits  against  debtors, 
scheming  for  a  title,  and  preparing  to  settle  down  for 
the  remainder  of  his  days  in  a  town  where  but  few 
of  his  prospective  neighbors  could  read  or  write, 
where  there  were  no  books,  and  where  his  domestic 
surroundings  would  be  fetid  watercourses,  stable 
refuse,  mud-walls,  and  piggeries.  Without  ambition 
for  anything  higher  or  better,  with  no  calamity  of 
any  kind  to  disturb  the  easy  current  of  his  thoughts, 
it  is  simply  inconceivable  that  he  could  at  that 
time  have  taken  the  new  departure  which  Professor 
Dowden   ascribes  to  him.2     It  is  only  in  the  "  whine 

1  "  The  tragedy  of  '  Othello,'  Plato's  records  of  the  last  scenes 
of  the  career  of  Socrates,  and  Isaac  Walton's  Life  of  George  Her- 
bert are  the  most  pathetic  of  human  compositions."  —  William 
Wordsivorth. 

2  Our  friends  on  the  other  side  have  not  overlooked  this  difficulty; 
with  what  success  they  have  met  it,  the  following,  perhaps  the  best 
adventure  of  the  kind,  may  show.  We  beg  to  assure  our  readers  that 
it  was  not  intended  as  a  caricature  :  — 

"  There  were  outward  causes  and  reasons  enough  ;  .  .  .  He  was 
doomed  to  look  on,  while  that  on  which  he  had  spent  all  his  mental 
energy  was  profaned  and  blackened  by  rude  hands  ;  he  was  doomed 
to  see  genuine  poetry,  and  with  it  the  deep  seriousness  of  the  Christian 
view  of  life,  banished  from  the  age.  It  was,  therefore,  but  natural  that 
he  should  have  had  misgivings,  lest  his  name  and  all  his  labors  would 
be  soon  forgotten,  perhaps,  forever.  .  .  .  Well,  then,  might  the  tone  of 
his  mind  have  sunk  into  the  harsh  dissonance  which  he  seems  to  have 
labored  to  embody  in  his  last  works,  in  order  to  shake  it  off  from  his 


Shakespeare s  Dark  Period.  157 

of  poets,"  says  James  Russell  Lowell,  that  the  "  out- 
ward world  was  cold  to  him." 

Turning  now  to  Bacon,  all  difficulty  vanishes. 
To  him  life  had  suddenly  become  very  dark.  The 
execution,  however  merited,  of  Essex,  his  old  friend, 
gave  him  a  terrible  shock ;  he  had  some  fears  of 
assassination  on  account  of  it.  It  caused  the  death 
of  his  only  brother,  Anthony,  his  "  comfort,"  between 
whom  and  himself  existed  the  tenderest  affection. 
His  mother  had  recently  become  violently  insane. 

The  great  object  of  his  life,  the  reform  of  philoso- 
phy, seemed  now  even  more  remote  from  him  than 
ever.  To  use  his  own  words,  uttered  a  little  while 
before,  he  was  indifferent  whether  God  or  Her  Maj- 
esty called  him. 

"  Here  we  see  that  agony  and  conflict  which  Professor  Dow- 
den  so  eloquently  describes ;  here  is  the  cry  of  anguish  which 
is  echoed  in  Hamlet's  strife  with  destiny,  and  in  Lear's  wild 
wail  of  unutterable  pain.  If  Professor  Dowden  had  been  able 
to  search  in  this  direction  for  the  original  of  the  portrait  which 
he  draws  of  the  mind  and  art  of  Shakespeare,  how  would  his 
deepest  speculations  have  been  more  than  justified !  What  new 
and  profound  and  precious  comments  would  he  have  made 
could  he  have  brought  his  glorious  conjectures  into  this  historic 
environment !  It  is  almost  shocking,  it  is  inexpressibly  humili- 
ating, to  see  his  attempts  to  establish  a  rapport  for  them  with 

own  bosom.'  [Italics  our  own.]  —  Ulricas  Shakespeare's  Dramatic 
Art,  p.  244. 

The  same  critic  finds,  also,  in  the  dissipations  and  frivolous  excesses 
which,  according  to  tradition,  marked  Shakspere's  youth,  and  which 
finally  drove  him  out  of  Stratford,  matter  for  a  sage  reflection  :  — 

"  How  often  may  we  thus  trace  the  guiding  finger  of  God  in  the 
errors  of  individuals,  and  the  consequences  to  which  they  lead!"  — 
Ibid.,  p.  74. 

"  Zeal  without  knowledge,"  is  Mr.  Lowell's  comment  on  Ulrici's 
book. 


158  Bacon  vs.  SJiakspere. 

the  vulgar,  hollow  mask  of  a  life  which  is  all  that  research  can 
possibly  find  in  the  Stratford  personality."  —  Robert  M.  Theo- 
bald, Baconiana,  I.  p.  63. 

XI.  The  author  of  the  plays  was  a  great  genius,  not  to  be 
judged  by  ordinary  standards,  or  under  the  common  limi- 
tations of  human  nature. 

Genius  has  no  known  antecedents;  a  man  possess- 
ing it  always  takes  the  world  by  surprise.  For  this 
reason,  the  ancients  were  prone  to  regard  genius,  not 
as  the  natural  resultant  of  qualities  combined  with 
infinite  variations  under  the  laws  of  heredity,  but  as 
something  specially  conferred  upon  favored  individ- 
uals from  a  higher  source.1 

In  modern  times  this  view  has  become  obsolete. 
What  is  merely  wonderful  (that  is,  unexplainable) 
has  ceased  to  be  miraculous.  No  one  now  pretends 
that  Caesar,  or  Plato,  or  any  other  highly  endowed 
member  of  our  race,  was  more  than  human.  The 
old  superstition  still  lingers,  however,  in  a  mild  form 
around  Shakspere.  And  no  wonder;  for  what  is 
displayed  in  his  reputed  writings  and  what  we  know 
of  his  life  are  so  utterly  at  variance  that,  as  Ralph 
Waldo  Emerson  declared,  the  twain  cannot  be  united 
by  a  marriage  ceremony.  Nothing  but  a  bolt  from 
heaven  could  fuse  them  together. 

"  Nobody  believes  any  longer  that  immediate  inspiration  is 
possible  in  modern  times,  and  yet  everybody  seems  to  take  it 

1  The  number  of  progenitors  that  have  contributed  to  make  every 
man  what  he  is,  within  the  space  of  twenty  generations  only,  or  about 
six  hundred  years,  exceeds  a  million.  The  individual  variations  in 
character  and  endowment  are  therefore  almost  infinite. 


Bacon,  a  Poet.  159 

for  granted  of  this  one  man,  Shakespeare."  —  LoweWs  Among 
My  Books,  p.  201. 

But  even  this  fanatical  conception  of  "  Shake- 
speare"  is  inadequate.  It  fails  to  account  for  the 
learning  embedded  in  the  plays,  —  learning  so  vast, 
so  multifarious,  and  often  so  technically  exact  that 
twenty-four  different  occupations  in  life  have  in  turn 
been  assigned  to  the  dramatist. 

XII.  Among  Bacon's  known  works  we  find  some  frag- 
ments of  verse  which  show  him  utterly  wanting  in  the  fine 
frenzy  of  the  poet. 

Bacon's  acknowledged  poetry,  it  is  safe  to  say, 
would  not  have  made  him  immortal.  We  know  that 
he  wrote  a  sonnet  to  the  Queen,  but,  unless  it  be 
included  in  the  "  Shake-speare  "  collection,  it  is  lost. 
Two  years  before  he  died,  and  while  incapacitated 
by  illness  for  good  work,  he  paraphrased  a  few  of 
the  Psalms,  which  he  afterward  published,  and  which 
would  seem  to  be  at  first  sight  only  so  many  nails 
driven  into  the  coffin  of  his  poetic  aspirations.  It  is 
manifestly  unfair,  however,  to  judge  of  his  capabili- 
ties in  this  line  by  a  sick-bed  effort.  He  was  neces- 
sarily hampered,  too,  by  the  restrictions  that  always 
attend  the  transplanting  of  an  exotic  in  full  bloom, 
lest  the  little  tendrils  of  speech  that  give  the  flower 
its  beauty  and  fragrance  be  broken.  The  president 
of  a  New  England  college  once  made  a  similar  adven- 
ture with  the  Psalms ;  but  when  the  book  appeared, 
the  author's  friends  bought  up  the  entire  edition,  and 
suppressed  it. 

The   following  are  two   of  the  Psalms  in  Bacon's 


160  Bacon  vs.  Skakspere. 

version,  —  the  two  that  represent,  perhaps,  the  oppo- 
site extremes  of  merit  among:  the  seven  :  — 


Psalm  CIV. 

Father  and  King  of  pow'rs,  both  high  and  low, 
Whose  sounding  fame  all  creatures  serve  to  blow, 
My  soul  shall  with  the  rest  strike  up  thy  praise, 
And  carol  of  thy  works  and  wondrous  ways. 
But  who  can  blaze  thy  beauties,  Lord,  aright  ? 
They  turn  the  brittle  beams  of  mortal  sight. 
Upon  thy  head  thou  wear'st  a  glorious  crown, 
All  set  with  virtues  polish'd  with  renown ; 
Thence  round  about  a  silver  veil  doth  fall 
Of  crystal  light,  mother  of  colors  all. 

The  compass  heav'n,  smooth  without  grain  or  fold, 
All  set  with  spangs  of  glitt'ring  stars  untold, 
And  strip'd  with  golden  beams  of  power  unpent, 
Is  raised  up  for  a  removing  tent. 
Vaulted  and  arched  are  his  chamber  beams 
Upon  the  seas,  the  waters,  and  the  streams. 
The  clouds  as  chariots  swift  do  scour  the  sky, 
The  stormy  winds  upon  their  wings  do  fly ; 
His  angels  spirits  are,  that  wait  his  will, 
As  flames  of  fire  his  an°:er  thev  fulfil. 


Nor  is  it  earth  alone  exalts  thy  name, 

But  seas  and  streams  likewise  do  spread  the  same. 

The  rolling  seas  unto  the  lot  doth  fall 

Of  beasts  innumerable,  great  and  small; 

There  do  the  stately  ships  plough  up  the  floods, 

The  greater  navies  look  like  walking  woods. 

The  fishes  there  far  voyages  do  make, 

To  divers  shores  their  journey  they  do  take. 

There  thou  hast  set  the  great  Leviathan, 

That  makes  the  seas  to  seethe  like  boiling  pan, 


Translations  of  the  Psalms.  161 

All  these  do  ask  of  thee  their  meat  to  live, 
Which  in  due  season  thou  to  them  dost  give. 
Ope  then  thy  hand,  and  then  they  have  good  fare ; 
Shut  thou  thy  hand,  and  then  they  troubled  are. 


Psalm  XC. 

O  Lord,  thou  art  our  home,  to  whom  we  fly, 
And  so  hast  always  been  from  age  to  age  ; 

Before  the  hills  did  intercept  the  eye, 

Or  that  the  frame  was  up  of  earthly  stage ; 

One  God  thou  wert,  and  art,  and  still  shalt  be ; 

The  line  of  time,  it  doth  not  measure  thee. 


Teach  us,  O  Lord,  to  number  well  our  days, 
Thereby  our  hearts  to  wisdom  to  apply ; 

For  that  which  guides  man  best  in  all  his  ways 
Is  meditation  of  mortality. 

This  bubble  light,  this  vapor  of  our  breath, 

Teach  us  to  consecrate  to  hour  of  death. 

Return  unto  us,  Lord,  and  balance  now. 

With  days  of  joy,  our  days  of  misery  ; 
Help  us  right  soon,  our  knees  to  thee  to  bow. 

Depending  wholly  on  thy  clemency. 
Then  shall  thy  servants,  both  with  heart  and  voice, 
All  the  days  of  their  life  in  thee  rejoice. 

Begin  thy  work,  O  Lord,  in  this  our  age, 
Show  it  unto  thy  servants  that  now  live ; 

But  to  our  children  raise  it  many  a  stage, 
That  all  the  world  to  thee  may  glory  give. 

Our  handy-work,  likewise,  as  fruitful  tree, 

Let  it,  O  Lord,  bless'd,  not  blasted,  be. 

"  It  is  not  safe  to  judge  of  his  [Bacon's]  poetical  powers  by 
his  paraphrase  of  the  Psalms,  which  was  written,  just  as  Mil- 

II 


1 62  Bacon  vs.  SJiakspere. 

ton's  paraphrase  was  written,  in  what  is  to-day  the  purest  dog- 
gerel. But  that  these  versions  were  so  written  purposely,  in 
order  that  the  meanest  intellects  might  commit  them  to  memory 
and  sing  them,  no  one  at  all  familiar  with  the  times  can  doubt 
for  a  moment.  If  there  is  any  degree  in  doggerel,  Milton's 
verses  are  the  most  ridiculous."  —  Applcton  Morgan. 

Milton  was  a  Christian  scholar,  as  well  as  a  great 
poet.  No  man  ever  lived  better  fitted  than  he  was, 
it  would  seem,  to  reproduce  to  our  ears  the  devout 
strains  of  Hebrew  melody.  For  purposes  of  compar- 
ison we  give,  also,  two  of  his  Psalms  out  of  the  nine- 
teen paraphrases  which  he  attempted,  as  follows :  — 


Psalm  VII. 

Lord,  my  God,  to  Thee  I  fly, 
Save  me  and  secure  me  under 

Thy  protection  while  I  cry ; 
Lest  as  a  lion  (and  no  wonder) 
He  haste  to  tear  my  soul  asunder, 

Tearing,  and  no  rescue  nigh. 


God  is  a  just  judge  and  severe, 
And  God  is  every  day  offended. 

If  the  unjust  will  not  forbear, 
His  sword  he  whets,  His  bow  hath  bended 
Already,  and  for  him  intended 

The  tools  of  death,  that  waits  him  near. 

(His  arrows  purposely  made  He 
For  them  that  persecute.)     Behold, 

He  travails  big  with  vanity  ; 

Trouble  he  hath  conceived  of  old 
As  in  a  womb;  and  from  that  mould 

Hath  at  length  brought  forth  a  lie. 


Milton's  Psalms.  163 

He  digged  a  pit,  and  delved  it  deep, 

And  fell  into  the  pit  he  made  : 
His  mischief,  that  due  course  doth  keep 

Turns  on  his  head ;  and  his  ill  trade 

Of  violence  will,  undelayed, 
Fall  on  his  crown  with  ruin  steep. 

Then  will  I  Jehovah's  praise 
According  to  his  justice  raise, 
And  sing  the  name  and  deity 
Of  Jehovah,  the  Most  High." 


Psalm  VIII. 

0  Jehovah,  our  Lord,  how  wondrous  great 
And  glorious  is  Thy  name  thro'  all  the  earth ! 

So  as  above  the  heavens  Thy  praise  to  set 
Out  of  the  tender  mouths  of  latest  birth. 

Out  of  the  mouths  of  babes  and  sucklings  Thou 
Hast  founded  strength,  because  of  all  thy  foes : 

To  stint  the  enemy,  and  slack  the  avenger's  brow, 
That  bend  his  rage  Thy  providence  to  oppose. 


Fowl  of  the  heavens,  and  fish  that  thro'  the  wet 
Sea  paths  in  shoals  do  slide,  and  know  no  dearth ; 

O  Jehovah,  our  Lord,  how  wondrous  great 
And  glorious  is  Thy  name  thro'  all  the  earth. 

We  think  our  readers  will  agree  with  us  that  hon- 
ors are  at  least  easy  between  these  distinguished 
translators. 

To  find  doggerel,  however,  we  need  not  travel  be- 
yond the  record  in  this  literary  suit.  There  are 
astonishing  specimens  of  it  in  "  Shake-speare,"  even 


164  Bacon  vs.  Shakspere. 

in  plays  which  are  admitted  by  every  one  to  be  his 
own  from  beginning  to  end.  Richard  Grant  White 
(who  prided  himself  on  the  title  which  he  had  ac- 
quired as  "  Shakespeare's  Scholar  ")  says  of  a  passage 
in  '  King  Lear  ' :  — 

"  It  is  hardly  more  than  a  succession  of  almost  trite  moral 
reflections  put  in  a  sententious  form,  and  written  in  verse  as 
weak,  as  constrained,  and  as  formal  as  that  of  a  French 
tragedy." 

We  quote  from  Mr.  White,  also,  in  reference  to  an- 
other play  of  undoubtedly  Shake-spearean  origin :  — 

"  Although  as  a  whole,  '  A  Midsummer  Night's  Dream '  is 
the  most  exquisite,  the  daintiest,  and  most  fanciful  creation 
that  exists  in  poetry,  and  abounds  in  passages  worthy  even  of 
Shakespeare  in  his  full  maturity,  it  also  contains  whole  scenes 
which  are  hardly  worthy  of  his  'prentice  hand,  and  which  yet 
seem  to  bear  unmistakable  marks  of  his  unmistakable  pen.  It 
is  difficult  to  believe  that  such  lines  as  — 

'  Do  not  say  so,  Lysander  ;  say  not  so. 
What  though  he  love  your  Hermia  ?     Lord,  what  though?' 

were  written  by  Shakespeare." 

Think  of  the  gems  in  this  same  wonderful  drama, 
—  gems 

"  That  on  the  stretched  forefinger  of  all  time 
Sparkle  forever," 

and  then,  by  the  side  of  them,  of  such  a  speech  as  this : 

"  When  at  your  hands  did  I  deserve  this  scorn  ? 
Is  't  not  enough,  is  't  not  enough,  young  man. 
That  I  did  never,  no,  nor  never  can, 
Deserve  a  sweet  look  from  Demetrius'  eye?" 


Bacon  as  a  Poet.  165 

The  truth  is,  Bacon's  version  of  the  Psalms  is  an 
essential  part  of  our  case ;  it  explains  what  would 
otherwise  have  been  inexplicable  in  "  Shake-speare." 
The  author  of  the  plays,  as  Mr.  White  observes,  was 
not  always  writing  '  Hamlet.' * 

"It  must  be  owned  that,  with  all  these  great  excellences,  he 
[Shakespeare]  has  almost  as  great  defects ;  and  that,  as  he  has 
certainly  written  better,  so  he  has  perhaps  written  worse,  than 
any  other."  —  Pope. 

Fortunately,  we  have  a  specimen  of  Bacon's  poetry 
for  which  we  need  not  apologize.  This  is  also  a 
translation ;  but  being  in  the  precincts  of  profane 
literature,  it  justified  a  freer  hand.  We  give  it  entire, 
as  follows :  — 

"  The  world 's  a  bubble,  and  the  life  of  man 
Less  than  a  span ; 
In  his  conception  wretched,  from  the  womb 
So  to  the  tomb  ; 

1  Wordsworth's  'Ode  on  Intimations  of  Immortality  in  Childhood' 
is,  without  doubt,  the  finest  production  of  its  kind  in  our  language. 
Mr.  Emerson  pronounced  it  the  "  high-water  mark  "  of  the  nineteenth 
century.  Among  other  works  of  the  same  author,  we  find  a  poem  of 
fifty  pages,  composed  in  1798,  and  kept  in  manuscript  for  more  than 
twenty  years,  subject  to  frequent  revision,  and  intended,  as  the  pref- 
ace informs  us,  for  a  permanent  place  in  the  world's  literature. 
When  it  finally  appeared,  Byron  demanded  to  know  whether  such 
trash  could  evade  contempt.  Sir  Walter  Scott  accused  the  author  of 
"crawling  on  all  fours."  Indeed,  we  know  of  nothing  in  the  whole 
range  of  English  verse  more  dismally  trivial  than  this  poem,  unless 
we  may  consider  it  redeemed  by  the  amazing  implication  in  one  stanza 
that  the  planet  Mars  has  a  ruddy  hue  because  the  people  who  inhabit 
it  are  red-haired.  In  the  Ode  we  have  the  sublimity  of  genius ;  its 
degradation  in  "  Peter  Hell."  Petrarch  has  given  us  the  finest  hymn 
and  the  most  wretched  sonnet  in  the  world. 


1 66  Bacon  vs.  Skakspere. 

Cursed  from  his  cradle,  and  brought  up  to  years 

With  cares  and  fears  ; 
Who,  then,  to  frail  mortality  shall  trust 
But  limns  the  water,  or  but  writes  in  dust. 

"  Yet  whilst  with  sorrow  here  we  live  oppressed, 

What  life  is  best? 
Courts  are  only  superficial  schools, 

To  dandle  fools. 
The  rural  parts  are  turned  into  a  den 

Of  savage  men : 
And  where  's  the  city  from  foul  vice  so  free 
But  may  be  termed  the  worst  of  all  the  three  ? 

"  Domestic  cares  afflict  the  husband's  bed, 

Or  pain  his  head. 
Those  that  live  single  take  it  for  a  curse, 

Or  do  things  worse. 
Some  would  have  children :  those  that  have  them  moan, 

Or  wish  them  gone. 
What  is  it,  then,  to  have  or  have  no  wife, 
But  single  thraldom,  or  a  double  strife  ? 

"  Our  own  affections  still  at  home  to  please 

Is  a  disease; 
To  cross  the  seas  to  any  foreign  soil, 

Perils  and  toil. 
Wars  with  their  noise  affright  us  ;  when  they  cease, 

We  're  worse  in  peace. 
What  then  remains,  but  that  we  still  should  cry 
Not  to  be  born,  or,  being  born,  to  die  ?  " 

It  is  not  known  when  the  above  was  written.  We 
find  it  for  the  first  time  in  a  volume  of  Greek  epi- 
grams, published  in  1629,  three  years  after  Bacon's 
death,  and  ascribed  to  him  on  good  authority.  All 
that  is  claimed  for  it  is  a  high  degree  of  skill  in  versi- 
fication,—  the  opportunity  not  admitting  a  flight  of 


Bacon  as  a  Poet.  167 

genius.  The  original  is  a  dull,  placid  stream  flowing 
through  a  meadow,  —  not  a  cataract  from  a  mountain 
height. 

"  The  merit  of  the  original  consists  almost  entirely  in  its 
compactness,  there  being  no  special  felicity  in  the  expression, 
or  music  in  the  metre.  In  the  English,  compactness  is  not 
aimed  at,  and  a  tone  of  plaintive  melody  is  imparted,  which  is 
due  chiefly  to  the  metrical  arrangement,  and  has  something  very 
pathetic  in  it  to  my  ear."  —  Bacon's  Works  (Spedding),  VII. 
271. 

We  have  seen  that  Bacon  declared  himself  a 
"concealed  poet"  (p.  85);  that  he  v/rote  a  sonnet 
to  Queen  Elizabeth  (p.  159)  ;  that  he  was  probably 
author  of  another  sonnet,  which  Florio  commended 
as  written  by  one  who  "  loved  better  to  be  a  poet 
than  to  be  counted  so"  (p.  86);  also,  that  John 
Aubrey,  Milton's  friend,  pronounced  Bacon  "  a  good 
poet,  but  concealed"  (p.  85).  Edmund  Howes,  a 
contemporary,  brings  us  another  testimonial  to  the 
same  general  effect,  for  he  reckoned  Bacon  among 
the  poets  then  living,  assigning  him  the  eighth,  and 
"  Shake-speare  "  the  thirteenth,  place  in  the  list.  In 
a  book  published  in  1645,  and  supposed  to  be  by  the 
eminent  poet,  George  Withers,  also  a  contemporary, 
an  account  is  given  of  a  great  assize  held  on  Mount 
Parnassus.  In  this  assembly  Apollo  sits  at  the  sum- 
mit;  but  next  to  him,  as  chancellor  of  Parnassus,  is 
placed  Francis  Bacon.  Edmund  Spenser  appears  as 
clerk. 

But  this  is  not  all.  Bacon  himself  once  admitted, 
in  the  freedom  of  his  private  correspondence,  that  he 
was  no  stranger  on  these  poetic  heights.     It  was  in 


1 68  Bacon  vs.  Shakspere. 

1 595,  at  the  very  time  when  the  "  Shake-speare " 
plays  were  coming  out  at  the  rate  of  two  a  year.  It 
was  also  immediately  after  Bacon  had  started  his 
famous  scrap-book,  in  which  so  many  turns  of  ex- 
pression, appropriate  only  to  dialogue,  are  noted, 
and  in  which  also  we  find  that  curious  reference  to 
"  law  at  Twickenham  for  the  merry  tales," — Twick- 
enham being  then  his  frequent  place  of  abode.1 

The  Earl  of  Essex  had  been  for  several  months 
using  his  efforts  to  secure  for  Bacon  an  office  under 
the  government,  but  with  so  many  disappointments 
that  Bacon  finally  turned  his  own  attention  to  some- 
thing else,  —  perhaps  to  secure  ready  money,  or 
"  quick  revenue,"  as  he  called  it,  of  which  he  was 
then  in  pressing  need,  —  for  he  wrote  to  the  Earl  as 
follows :  — 

"I  am  neither  much  in  appetite  [for  the  office]  nor  much  in 
hope :  for,  as  to  the  appetite,  the  waters  of  Parnassus  are  not 
like  the  waters  of  the  Spaw,  that  give  a  stomach,  but  rather  they 
quench  appetites  and  desires."2 

"  Parnassus,  a  mountain  in  Central  Greece,  in  mythology 
sacred  to  the  muses.  The  Delphian  sanctuary  of  Apollo  was 
on  its  slope,  and  from  between  its  twin  summit  peaks  flows  the 
fountain  of  Castalia,  the  waters  of  which  were  imputed  to  im- 
part the  virtue  of  poetic  inspiration."  —  Century  Dictionary. 

1  The  first  entry  was  made  in  the  Promus  in  December,  1594. 
We  have  several  letters  written  by  Bacon  in  1595,  closing  with  the 
words,  "from  my  lodge  at  Twicknam." 

2  How  far  Essex'  knowledge  extended  in  this  direction  we  do  not 
know:  but  we  do  know  that,  even  if  it  covered  the  early  dramas,  it 
would  not  have  been  considered  by  him  of  much  importance;  for, 
with  the  exception  of  'Hamlet'  in  its  first  draft,  and  'Romeo  and 
Juliet,'  none  of  the  great  Tragedies  had  been  written  at  the  time  of 
his  death.  We  must  not  measure  the  magnitude  of  the  secret,  as  it 
then  was,  by  our  present  conceptions  of  it. 


Bacon  as  a  Poet.  169 

To  get  the  full  force  of  these  facts,  however,  we 
must  study  Bacon's  prose,  which  the  critics,  before 
the  shadow  of  this  controversy  fell  upon  and  chilled 
them,  thus  described  :  — 

"  In  this  band  of  scholars,  dreamers,  and  inquirers  appears 
the  most  comprehensive,  sensitive,  originative  of  the  minds  of 
the  age,  Francis  Bacon ;  a  great  and  luminous  intellect,  one  of 
the  finest  of  this  poetic  progeny."  —  Taine. 

"  Like  the  poets,  he  peoples  nature  with  instincts  and  desires ; 
attributes  to  bodies  an  actual  voracity;  to  the  atmosphere,  a 
thirst  for  light,  sounds,  odors,  vapors,  which  it  drinks  in;  to 
metals,  a  sort  of  haste  to  be  incorporated  with  acids."  —  Ibid. 

"  He  thought  in  the  manner  of  artists  and  poets,  and  spake 
in  the  manner  of  prophets  and  seers."  —  Ibid. 

"  His  abilities  were  a  clear  confutation  of  two  vulgar  errors : 
first,  that  judgment,  wit,  fancy,  and  memory  cannot  conveniently 
be  in  conjunction  in  the  same  person ;  whereas,  our  knight  was 
a  rich  cabinet,  filled  with  all  four,  besides  a  golden  key  to  open 
it." —  Thomas  Fuller's  Worthies. 

"  Abilities  which  commonly  go  single  in  other  men  are  all 
conjoined  in  him."  —  Dr.  Rawley  (Bacon's  chaplain). 

"  All  his  literary  works  are  instinct  with  poetry  in  the  wider 
sense  of  the  term.  Sometimes  it  is  seen  in  a  beautiful  simile  or 
a  felicitous  phrase ;  sometimes  in  a  touch  of  pathos.  More 
often  in  the  rhythmical  cadence  of  a  sentence  which  clings  to 
the  memory  as  only  poetry  can."  —  A.  F.  Blaisdell. 

"  In  his  style  there  is  the  same  quality  which  is  applauded 
in  Shakespeare,  —  a  combination  of  the  intellectual  and  the 
imaginative,  the  closest  reasoning  in  the  boldest  metaphor."  — 
Shaw. 

"  The  utmost  splendor  of  imagery."  —  Mackintosh. 

"  Like  unto  Shakespeare,  he  takes  good  note  of  any  defi- 
ciency of  syllabic  pulsations,  and  imparts  the  value  of  but  one 
syllable  to  the  dissyllables  heaven,  many,  even,  goeth;  and  to 
glittering  and  chariot  but  the  value  of  two,  precisely  as  Shake- 
speare would."  —  Prof.  J.  W.  Tavener. 

"  The  style  is  quaint,  original,  abounding  in  allusions  and 


170  Bacon  vs.  Shakspere. 

witticisms,  and  rich,  even  to  gorgeousness,  with  piled-up  analo- 
gies and  metaphors."  —  Encyc.  Brit. 

"  It  is  as  an  inspired  seer,  the  prose-poet  of  modern  science, 
that  I  reverence  Lord  Bacon."  —  Sir  Alexander  Grant. 

"  Few  poets  deal  in  finer  imagery  than  is  to  be  found  in 
Bacon.  .  .  .  His  prose  is  poetry."  —  Lord  Campbell. 

"  Lord  Bacon  was  a  poet.  His  language  has  a  sweet  and 
majestic  rhythm  which  satisfies  the  sense,  no  less  than  the  al- 
most superhuman  wisdom  of  his  philosophy  satisfies  the  intel- 
lect. It  is  a  strain  which  distends,  and  then  bursts  the 
circumference  of  the  reader's  mind,  and  pours  itself  forth 
with  it  into  the  universal  element  with  which  it  has  perpetual 
sympathy. 

"  Plato  exhibits  the  rare  union  of  close  and  subtle  logic  with 
the  Pythian  enthusiasm  of  poetry,  melted  by  the  splendor  and 
harmony  of  his  periods,  which  hurry  the  persuasion  onward  as 
in  a  breathless  career.  His  language  is  that  of  an  immortal 
spirit  rather  than  of  a  man.  Lord  Bacon  is,  perhaps,  the  only 
writer  who,  in  these  particulars,  can  be  compared  with  him."  x  — 
Shelley. 

"  Much  of  Bacon's  life  was  passed  in  a  visionary  world, 
amidst  things  as  strange  as  any  that  are  described  in  the  Ara- 
bian Tales."  —  Macaulay. 

"The  little  volume  of  Bacon's  'Essays'  exhibit,  not  only 
more  strength  of  mind,  more  true  philosophy,  but  more  origi- 
nality, more  fancy,  more  imagination,  than  all  the  volumes  of 
Plato." —  Walter  Savage  Landor. 

"  We  seldom  fail  to  meet  in  his  pages  with  some  broad  gen- 
eralization, some  color  of  fancy,  some  apt  classical  reference  or 
startling  epigram.  No  other  man  ever  so  illumined  a  mass  of 
technical  details  with  the  light  of  genius."  —  Nicholas  Francis 
Bacon  :  His  Life  and  Philosophy. 

1  Our  attention  was  called  to  this  remarkable  testimony  of  the 
poet  Shelley  by  Mr.  R.  M.  Theobald,  who  makes  the  following  com- 
ment: "The  truth  is,  that  while  the  critics  have  their  eye  on  the 
Baconian  theory,  they  call  Bacon  prosy,  unimaginative,  and  incapable 
of  poetry.  When  they  sincerely  describe  him,  they  one  and  all  assign 
to  him  Shakespearean  attributes ;  so  that,  if  you  cull  the  eulogies 
passed  on  Bacon,  you  have  a  portrait  of  the  author  of  Shakespeare." 


Bacon,  a  Poet.  1 7 1 

"  Bacon's  anticipations  [in  physical  science]  are  like  those  of 
the  'Fairy  Queen'  about  the  stars,  —  flights  of  an  imagination 
almost  as  unique  in  prose  as  Shakespeare's  in  verse."  —  Nichols 
Francis  Bacon:  His  Life  and  Philosophy,  Part  II.  p.  193. 

"  It  is  his  imagination  which  gives  such  splendor  and  attrac- 
tiveness to  his  writings,  clothing  his  thoughts  in  purple  and  gold, 
and  making  them  move  in  majestic  cadences."  —  Whipple's  Lite- 
rature of  the  Age  of  Elisabeth,  p.  301. 

"  His  superb  rhetoric  is  the  poetry  of  physical  science.  The 
humblest  laborer  in  that  field  feels,  in  reading  Bacon,  that  he 
himself  is  one  of  a  band  of  heroes,  wielding  weapons  mightier 
than  those  of  Achilles  or  Agamemnon,  engaged  in  a  siege  no- 
bler than  that  of  Troy."  —  Ibid.,  p.  323. 

"  We  have  only  to  open  '  The  Advancement  of  Learning '  to 
see  how  the  Attic  bees  clustered  above  the  cradle  of  the  new 
philosophy.  Poetry  pervaded  the  thoughts,  it  inspired  the 
similes,  it  hymned  in  the  majestic  sentences  of  the  wisest  of 
mankind."  —  E.  Bulwer  Lytton. 

"  He  seems  to  have  written  his  essays  with  the  pen  of 
Shakespeare."  —  Alexander  Smith. 

"  I  infer  from  this  sample  that  Bacon  had  all  the  natural 
faculties  which  a  poet  wants,  —  a  fine  ear  for  metre,  a  fine  feel- 
ing for  imaginative  effect  in  words,  and  a  vein  of  poetic  pas- 
sion." —  Spedditig. 

It  is  admitted,  then,  that  Bacon  was  at  least  a  prose 
poet.  No  man  ever  caught  more  quickly  or  aptly 
the  resemblances  of  things,  or  had  a  finer  ear  for  the 
melody  of  speech.  His  metaphors  trooped,  as  it 
were,  to  the  sound  of  music.  Professor  Tavener 
compares  his  cadences  to  the  swinging  of  a  pendu- 
lum beating  seconds.  We  know  he  was  abnormally 
sensitive  to  the  moods  of  nature,  for  he  had  fainting 
spells  at  every  eclipse  of  the  moon.  We  know  he 
had  a  passion  for  the  drama,  shown  by  the  part  he 
took  in  devising  stage  performances  before  the  Court, 
and  in  the  revels  at  Gray's  Inn.     We  know,  also,  he 


172  Bacon  vs.  Shakspere. 

had  an  inexhaustible  fund  of  humor,  that  poured  from 
his  tongue  with  the  ripple  of  laughing  waters,  and 
needed  only  the  constraints  of  a  written  dialogue  to 
tumble  and  foam. 

••  The  truth  is  that  Bacon  was  not  without  the  fine  frenzy  of 
the  poet.  .  .  .  Had  his  genius  taken  the  ordinary  direction,  I 
have  little  doubt  that  it  would  have  carried  him  to  a  place  among 
the  great  poets."  —  Speddinfs  Life  of  Bacon. 

XIII.  Bacon's  want  of  natural  sympathy,  as  sho7un  in 
his  treatment  of  Essex,  fails  to  satisfy  our  ideal,  derived 
from  the  dramas  themselves,  of  their  great  author  ;  for  the 
world  has  bestowed  upon  Shakespeare  not  only  its  reverence 
but  its  love. 

It  cannot  be  denied  that  the  author  of  the  plays 
possessed  a  heart  of  the  most  tender  sensibilities. 
Like  the  tides  of  the  ocean,  his  sympathies  were 
"  poured  round  all,"  penetrating  every  bay,  creek, 
and  river  of  human  experience.  The  voyager  o'er 
the  mighty  current  of  his  thought  always  feels  em- 
barked on  the  bosom  of  the  unbounded  deep.  It  is 
not  enough,  therefore,  that  Bacon  was  a  man  of  lofty 
aims ;  that  he  devoted  his  great  powers  with  tireless 
assiduity  to  the  interests  of  mankind ;  was  he  also 
of  that  rare  type  of  character  that,  with  greatness 
of  intellect,  glows  and  scintillates  at  every  touch  of 
feeling? 

This  brings  us  to  a  most  important  test,  the  per- 
sonality of  Lord  Bacon  himself.  Time  has  scarcely 
dimmed  his  figure ;  we  know  him  almost  as  inti- 
mately as  though  he  were  walking  our  streets.  We 
see  him    gathering  violets    in   his    garden,    stringing 


Bacons  Philanthropy.  173 

pearls  of  thought  in  his  essays,  swaying  the  House 
of  Commons  with  his  eloquence,  holding  the  scales 
of  justice  in  the  courts,  marking  the  trend  of  social 
progress  in  his  histories,  and  breaking  the  chains 
that  had  bound  the  human  intellect  from  the  days 
of  Aristotle.  His  mind  and  heart  were  in  touch 
with  every  interest  of  mankind.  He  was  poet,  orator, 
naturalist,  physician,  historian,  essayist,  philosopher, 
statesman,  and  judge.  No  man  ever  more  completely 
filled  the  ideal  of  the  Roman  poet:  — 

"  Homo  sum ;  humani  nihil  a  me  alienum  puto." 

"  The  leading  peculiarity  of  Bacon's  literary  style  is  its  sym- 
pathetic nature."  —  Abbotfs  Life  of  Bacon. 

"  Love  of  mankind  with  Bacon  is  not  merely  the  noblest 
feeling,  but  the  highest  reason ;  a  rich  and  mellow  spirit  of 
humanity. 

"  Perhaps  the  finest  sentence  in  his  writings,  certainly  the  one 
which  best  indicates  the  essential  feeling  of  his  soul  as  he 
regarded  human  misery  and  ignorance,  occurs  in  his  description 
of  one  of  the  fathers  of  Solomon's  House.  '  His  countenance,' 
he  says,  '  was  as  the  countenance  of  one  who  pities  men.'  "  — 
E.  P.  Whipple. 

"  The  small,  fine  mind  of  Labruyere  had  not  a  more  delicate 
tact  than  the  large  intellect  of  Bacon.  His  understanding  re- 
sembled the  tent  which  the  fairy  Parabanon  gave  to  Prince 
Ahmed.  Fold  it,  and  it  seemed  a  toy  in  the  hand  of  a  lady ; 
spread  it,  and  the  armies  of  powerful  sultans  might  repose 
beneath  its  shade."  —  Macanlay's  Essay  on  Bacon. 

"  A  soft  voice,  a  laughing  lip,  a  melting  heart,  made  him 
hosts  of  friends.  No  child  could  resist  the  spell  of  his  sweet 
speech,  of  his  tender  smile,  of  his  grace  without  study,  his 
frankness  without  guile."  —  Hcpworth  Dixon's  Personal  His- 
tory of  Lord  Bacon,  p.  8. 


174  Bacon  vs.  Shakspere. 

"  All  his  pores  lie  open  to  external  nature  ;  birds  and  flowers 
delight  his  eye ;  his  pulse  beats  quick  at  the  sight  of  a  fine 
horse,  a  ship  in  full  sail,  a  soft  sweep  of  country ;  everything 
holy,  innocent,  and  gay  acts  on  his  spirits  like  wine  on  a  strong 
man's  blood.  Joyous,  helpful,  swift  to  do  good,  slow  to  think 
evil,  he  leaves  on  every  one  who  meets  him  a  sense  of  friend- 
liness, of  peace  and  power.  The  serenity  of  his  spirit  keeps 
his  intellect  bright,  his  affections  warm." — Hepworth  Dixon's 
Personal  History  of  Lord  Bacon,  p.  15. 

He  is  accused  of  ingratitude  toward  his  friend 
Essex,  first,  because  he  appeared  against  the  accused 
at  the  trial;  and,  secondly,  because  by  superior  tac- 
tics he  was  the  means  of  insuring  conviction. 

On  the  first  point,  it  is  sufficient  to  say  that 
Bacon  was  present  as  an  officer  of  the  crown  at  the 
express  command  of  the  Queen,  having  repeatedly 
forewarned  the  Earl  of  the  result  of  his  evil  courses, 
and  duly  notified  him  that,  on  any  breach  of  the 
peace,  he  himself  would  support  the  government. 
The  Earl  richly  merited  his  fate.  His  rebellion 
was  one  of  the  meanest,  most  causeless,  and 
most  contemptible  that  has  stained  the  history  of 
England. 

"  The  rigor  with  which  Bacon  has  been  censured  for  acting 
on  the  fall  of  his  patron  Essex  as  advocate  of  the  complainant, 
and  afterwards  laying  before  the  public  an  account  of  the  pro- 
cess justifying  the  Queen,  appears  unjust  to  any  one  who  con- 
siders how  Bacon  exerted  himself  to  bring  the  Earl  to  reason 
and  the  Queen  to  mercy,  and  at  the  same  time,  in  virtue  of  his 
office,  he  was  bound  to  perform  whatever  duty  the  Queen  laid 
upon  him."  —  Erdman's  History  of  Philosophy,  I.  669  [1890]. 

On  the  second,  Bacon  was  prominent  in  the  pro- 
ceedings because  his  mental  stature  made  him  promi- 
nent.    As  well  attempt  to  force  an  oak  back  into  its 


Bribery  Charges.  175 

acorn   as  to  bring  Francis   Bacon   on   any  occasion 
down  to  the  level  of  ordinary  men.1 

In  the  matter  of  the  bribes,  he  suffered  for  the 
sins  of  society.  So  far  as  he  was  personally  culpable, 
it  is  manifest  from  his  subsequent  demeanor  that 
chronic  carelessness  in  money  matters,  and  not  any 
guile,  was  at  the  bottom  of  the  difficulty.  To  be 
sure,  he  was  lax  in  the  administration  of  his  house- 
hold affairs;  but  so  was  William  Pitt.  Pitt  could  rule 
an  empire,  but  not  his  own  servants.  Bacon  con- 
quered nearly  every  known  realm  of  human  knowl- 
edge, but  he  never  invaded  the  dominions  of  his 
cook.2  An  imperial  contempt  for  money  dominated 
both.  Venality  is  the  very  last  sin  in  the  whole  cata- 
logue of  human  frailties  of  which  either  of  these  two 
men  could  have  been  guilty,  but  it  is  the  one  with 
which  Bacon  has  been  most  persistently,  cruelly, 
mercilessly  charged  for  more  than  two  hundred  and 

1  That  he  felt  himself  compromised  in  public  estimation,  we  know 
very  well,  for  in  a  letter  to  the  Queen  he  says  :  — 

"  My  life  has  been  threatened  and  my  name  libelled." 

We  find  the  same  lament  in  one  of  the  "  Shake-speare  sonnets,  as 
follows :  — 

"  Then  hate  me  if  thou  wilt ;  if  ever,  now, 
Now  while  the  world  is  bent  my  deeds  to  cross, 
Join  with  the  spite  of  fortune."  Sonnet  XC. 

In  another  sonnet,  the  author  expresses  fear  of  assassination,  an- 
ticipating 

"The  coward  conquest  of  a  wretch's  knife."  LXX. 

2  It  was  the  waste  of  the  servants'  hall  that  impoverished  them. 
In  Pitt's  case,  the  quantity  of  butcher's  meat  charged  in  the  bills  was 
nine  hundred  weight  a  week.  The  consumption  of  poultry,  of  fish, 
of  tea,  was  in  proportion.  After  his  death,  all  parties  in  the  House 
of  Commons  readily  concurred  in  voting  forty  thousand  pounds  to 
satisfy  the  demands  of  his  creditors. 


1 76  Bacon  vs.  Shakspere. 

fifty  years.  A  Roman  Emperor  once  indulged  in  the 
amiable  wish  that  his  people  had  but  one  head,  that 
he  might  cut  it  off  at  a  blow.  He  was  a  monster ; 
but  we  confess  we  find  some  sad  evidences  of  kinship 
with  him  in  our  own  heart  when  we  think  of  the 
calumniators  of  Francis  Bacon,  though  the  most 
brilliant  essayist  that  has  ever  adorned  the  literary 
annals  of  England  and  the  kindest  of  men  be  the 
chief  offender.  The  fact  that  Bacon,  with  all  his 
great  abilities,  known  and  acknowledged,  could  get 
no  lucrative  office  under  the  government  until  he 
was  forty-six  years  old,  and  that  he  was  finally  retired 
to  private  life  by  the  machinations  of  men  notoriously 
venal,  may  be  taken  as  presumptive  proof  of  the 
independence  of  his  character,  as  well  as  of  his  rec- 
titude and  his  honor.1 

1  Bacon's  want  of  attention  to  his  personal  finances  (a  not  uncom- 
mon failing  in  great  men,  due  to  a  sort  of  instinct  that  the  matter  is 
beneath  them)  caused  his  mother  the  most  lively  concern.  She  even 
interfered  at  one  time  to  protect  him  from  his  own  servants.  Sped- 
ding  tells  the  following  story  in  point :  — 

"  In  the  year  1655,  a  bookseller's  boy  heard  some  gentlemen  talk- 
ing in  his  master's  shop;  one  of  them,  a  gray-headed  man,  was  de- 
scribing a  scene  which  he  had  himself  witnessed  at  Gorhambury.  He 
had  gone  to  see  the  lord  chancellor  on  business,  who  received  him  in 
his  study,  and,  having  occasion  to  go  out,  left  him  there  for  a  while 
alone.  'Whilst  his  lordship  was  gone,  there  comes,' he  said,  'into 
the  study  one  of  his  lordship's  gentlemen,  and  opens  my  lord's  chest 
of  drawers  wherein  his  money  was,  takes  it  out  in  handfuls,  fills  his 
pockets,  and  goes  away  without  saying  a  word  to  me.  He  was  no 
sooner  gone  but  comes  another  gentleman,  opens  the  same  drawers, 
fills  both  his  pockets  with  money,  and  goes  away  as  the  former  did 
without  speaking  a  word.'  Bacon,  being  told,  when  he  came  back, 
what  had  passed  in  his  absence,  merely  shook  his  head,  and  all  he 
said  was, '  Sir,  I  cannot  help  myself.'  " 

Montagu  relates  another  incident  to  the  same  effect :  — 

One  day,  immediately  after  Bacon's  removal  from  the  chancellor- 


Bacons  Downfall.  177 

"  No  one  mistook  the  condemnation  for  a  moral  censure ;  no 
one  treated  Lord  St.  Albans  as  a  convicted  judge.  The  House 
of  Commons  had  refused  to  adopt  the  charge  of  bribery ;  the 
House  of  Lords  had  rejected  the  attempt  to  brand  him  with 
a  personal  shame  ;  and  society  treated  the  event  as  one  of  those 
struggles  for  place  which  may  hurt  a  man's  fortunes  without 
hurting  his  fame.  The  most  noble  and  most  generous  men,  the 
best  scholars,  the  most  pious  clergymen,  gathered  round  him  in 
his  adversity,  more  loving,  more  observant,  more  reverential, 
than  they  had  ever  been  in  his  days  of  splendor. 

"  Such  was  also  the  reading  of  these  transactions  by  the  most 
eminent  of  foreign  ministers  and  travellers.  The  French  Mar- 
quis d'Effiat,  the  Spanish  Conde  de  Gondomar,  expressed  for 
him  in  his  fallen  fortunes  the  most  exalted  veneration.  That 
the  judges  on  the  bench,  that  the  members  of  both  Houses  of 
Parliament,  even  those  who,  at  Buckingham's  bidding,  had 
passed  against  him  that  abominable  sentence,  concurred  with 
the  most  eminent  of  their  contemporaries,  native  and  alien,  is 
apparent  in  the  failure  of  every  attempt  made  to  disturb  his 
judicial  decisions.  These  efforts  failed  because  there  was  no 
injustice  to  overthrow,  and  there  was  no  injustice  to  overthrow 
because  there  had  been  no  corruption  on  the  bench."  —  Dixon. 

"  As  regards  the  official  impeachment  of  Bacon,  if  taken 
alone,  it  may  establish  no  more  against  him  than  that,  amid 

ship,  he  happened  to  enter  his  servants'  hall  while  the  servants  were 
at  dinner.  On  their  rising  to  receive  him,  he  said  :  "  Re  seated  ;  your 
rise  has  been  my  fall." 

"  His  principal  fault  seems  to  have  been  the  excess  of  that  virtue 
which  covers  a  multitude  of  sins.  This  betrayed  him  to  so  great  an 
indulgence  toward  his  servants,  who  made  a  corrupt  use  of  it,  that  it 
stripped  him  of  all  those  riches  and  honors  which  a  long  series  of 
merits  had  heaped  upon  him."  —  Addison. 

"Bacon  was  generous,  easy,  good-natured,  and  naturally  just;  but 
he  had  the  misfortune  to  be  beset  by  domestic  harpies,  who,  in  a 
manner,  farmed  out  his  office." — Gttthrie. 

One  writer  says  that  "  three  of  his  lordship's  servants  kept  their 
coaches,  and  some  kept  race-horses." 

12 


i  yS  Bacon  vs.  Skakspere. 

the  multitude  of  engrossing  calls  upon  his  mind,  he  did  not 
extricate  himself  from  the  meshes  of  a  practice  full  of  danger 
and  of  mischief,  but  in  which  the  dividing  lines  of  absolute  right 
and  wrong  had  not  then  been  sharply  marked.  Hapless  is  he 
on  whose  head  the  world  discharges  the  vials  of  its  angry  vir- 
tue ;  and  such  is  commonly  the  case  with  the  last  and  detected 
usufructuary  of  a  golden  abuse  which  has  outlived  its  time.  In 
such  cases  posterity  may  safely  exercise  its  royal  prerogative  of 
mercy."  —  W.  E.  Gladstone. 

History  presents  to  us  no  more  pathetic  figure 
than  that  of  the  great  Lord  Bacon  beseeching  in  vain 
that  he  might  not  be  compelled  to  close  his  career, 
a  career  of  unexampled  usefulness  to  the  world,  in 
ignominy.  The  authorities  that  condemned  him 
remind  us  of  a  pack  of  wolves  turning  upon  and 
rending  a  wounded  comrade. 

"  I  could  never  bring  myself  to  condole  with  the  great  man 
after  his  fall,  knowing  as  I  did  that  no  accident  could  do  harm 
to  his  virtue,  but  rather  make  it  manifest.  He  seemed  to  me 
ever  by  his  work  one  of  the  greatest  men  and  most  worthy  of 
admiration."  —  Ben  Jonson. 

"  A  memorable  example  to  all  of  virtue,  kindness,  peaceable- 
ness,  and  patience."  —Peter  Boener  {Bacon's  Apothecary). 

"A  friend  unalterable  to  his  friends."  —  Sir  Toby  Matthew. 

"  A  man  most  sweet  in  his  conversation  and  ways."  —  Ibid. 

"  It  is  not  his  greatness  that  I  admire,  but  his  virtue."  —  Ibid. 

"  May  your  good  word  grace  it  and  defend  it,  which  is  able 
to  add  a  charm  to  the  greatest  and  least  matters."  —  Beau- 
mont's Dedication  of  a  Masque  to  Bacon,  1612. 

"  I  have  been  induced  to  think  that,  if  ever  there  were  a 
beam  of  knowledge  derived  from  God  upon  any  man  in  these 
modern  times,  it  was  upon  him."  — Dr.  Rawiey. 


St.  Michael's  Church. 


For  my  burial,  I  desire  it  may  be  in  St.  MichaeFs  Church,  near 

St.  Albans  :   therewas  my  mother  buried.  —  Yv.  \Ni'is  l!.\CON. 


Bacons  Private  Cliaracter.  181 

"  He  struck  all  men  with  an  awful  reverence."  —  Francis 
Osborne. 

The  above  are  testimonials  of  Bacon's  friends,  of 
members  of  his  household,  and  of  literary  competitors. 

"  They  bear  witness  to  the  stainlessness  of  his  private  life, 
his  perfect  temperance,  self-possession,  modest  demeanor,  and 
his  innocent  pleasantry."  —  Nichols  Life  of  Bacon,  p.  202. 

"Retiring,  nervous,  sensitive,  unconventional,  modest."  — 
Spedding's  Life  of  Bacon. 

"  Those  who  saw  him  nearest  in  his  private  life  give  him  the 
best  character."  —  Ibid. 

"  At  the  same  time  that  we  find  him  prostrating  himself  be- 
fore the  great  mercy-seat  and  humbled  under  afflictions  which 
lay  heavy  upon  him,  we  see  him  supported  by  the  sense  of  his 
dignity,  his  zeal,  his  devotion,  and  his  love  of  mankind."  — 
Joseph  Addison. 

"  Beloved  for  the  courteousness  and  humanity  of  his  be- 
havior." —  David  Hume. 

"  Bacon  declared  that  his  works  were  rather  the  fruit  of  his 
time  than  of  his  genius.  —  Gervinus. 

"  He  attached  little  importance  to  himself.  ...  No  correct 
notion  can  be  formed  of  Bacon's  character  till  this  suspicion  of 
self-conceit  is  scattered  to  the  winds."  —  Abbott's  Life  of 
Bacon. 

"  Weighted  by  the  magnificence  of  his  character."  —  Ibid. 

"  Of  an  unusually  sweet  temper  and  amiable  disposition."  — 
Encyc.  Brit.,  art.  Bacon. 

"He  was  generous,  open-hearted,  affectionate,  peculiarly 
sensitive  to  kindness,  and  equally  forgetful  of  injuries."  — 
Fowler's  Life  of  Bacon. 

"  All  who  were  great  and  good  loved  and  honored  him."  — 

A  nbrey. 


1 82  Bacon  vs.  Shakspere. 

"  His  acquaintance  was  eagerly  sought  by  the  eminent  of 
every  class,  and  by  all  whom  an  ingenuous  love  of  excellence 
prompted  to  render  homage  to  the  greatest  general  philosopher, 
the  first  orator,  and  the  finest  writer  of  his  age."  —  Aikin's 
Court  of  James  /.,  II.  p.  201 . 

"  He  hungered,  as  for  food,  to  rule  and  bless  mankind."  — 
Hepworth  Dixon. 

"  One  with  whom  the  whole  purpose  of  living  was  to  do  great 
things  to  enlighten  and  elevate  his  race,  to  enrich  it  with  new 
powers,  to  lay  up  in  store  for  all  ages  to  come  a  source  of 
blessings  which  should  never  fail."  —  Church's  Life  of  Bacon, 
p.  1. 

"  His  greatness,  his  splendid  genius,  his  magnificent  ideas, 
his  enthusiasm  for  truth,  his  passion  to  be  the  benefactor  of  his 
kind,  the  charm  that  made  him  loved  by  good  and  worthy 
friends,  amiable,  courteous,  patient,  delightful  as  a  companion, 
ready  to  take  any  trouble."  —  Ibid. 

"  It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  in  temper,  in  honesty,  in 
labor,  in  humility,  in  reverence,  he  was  the  most  perfect 
example  that  the  world  has  yet  seen  of  the  student  of  nature." 
—  Ibid. 

"  The  name  which  he  aspired  to,  and  for  which  he  was  will- 
ing to  renounce  his  own,  was  '  Benefactor  of  Mankind.' "  — 
Delia  Bacon. 

"  He  stands  almost  alone  in  literature,  a  vast,  dispassionate 
intellect,  in  which  the  sentiment  of  philanthropy  has  been 
refined  and  purified  into  the  subtle  essence  of  thought. 

"  It  may  be  questioned  whether  Shakespeare  himself  could 
thoroughly  have  appreciated  Bacon's  intellectual  character. 
He  could  have  delineated  Bacon  in  everything  but  in  that 
peculiar  philanthropy  of  the  mind,  that  spiritual  benignity,  that 
belief  in  man  and  confidence  in  the  future,"  which  are  Bacon's 
distinguishing  characteristics.  —Whipple's  Age  of  Elizabeth. 

"A  deep  sense  of  the  misery  of  mankind  is  visible  through- 
out his  writings.  ...   He  has  often  been  called  a  utilitarian, 


Bacons  Private  Character.  183 

not  because  he  loved  truth  less  than  others,  but  because  he 
loved  men  more."  —  Ellis's  Preface  to  Bacon's  Philosophical 
Works. 

"From  the  day  of  his  death,  his  fame  has  been  constantly 
and  steadily  progressive ;  and  we  have  no  doubt  that  his  name 
will  be  named  with  reverence  to  the  latest  ages,  and  to  the 
remotest  ends  of  the  civilized  world."  —  Macaulay. 


V. 

COINCIDENCES. 

LET  us  now  mark  certain  coincidences  in  the  com- 
position of  the  plays  with  the  well-known  habits  and 
studies  of  Francis  Bacon. 

a.  A  prominent  characteristic  of  Bacon,  in  his 
literary  work,  was  the  frequency  with  which  he  in- 
vented new  words.  It  is  safe  to  say  that  no  other 
writer,  with  possibly  one  exception,  ever  did  so 
much  to  diversify  and  enrich  our  English  tongue. 
We  find  many  of  these  words  actually  taking  shape 
before  our  eyes  in  the  Promus,  —  perhaps  a  bright 
nucleus  from  the  Latin  in  a  nebulous  envelope  of 
prefixes  and  suffixes,  preparing  to  shine  forever  with 
a  radiance  of  its  own  in  human  speech. 

"  A  dictionary  of  the  English  language  might  be  compiled 
from  Bacon's  works  alone."  —  Dr.  Johnson. 

In  this  business  of  word-building,  however,  Bacon 
had  a  strange  double.  It  is  estimated  that  Shake- 
speare gave  three  thousand  new  words,  inclusive  of 
old  words  with  new  meanings,  to  our  language.  And 
these  additions  were  also,  like  Bacon's,  derived  chiefly 
from  the  Latin.  They  were  such  as  only  a  scholar 
could  impose  upon  the  king's  vernacular. 


Vocabulary  185 

"  Shakespeare's  plays  show  forty  per  cent  of  romance  or 
Latin  words."  —  Richard  Grant  White. 

"  He  did  not  scruple  even  to  naturalize  words  for  his  own 
use  from  foreign  springs,  such  as  exsufflicate  and  derascinate  j 
or  to  coin  a  word  whenever  the  concurring  reasons  of  sense 
and  verse  invited  it,  as  in  fedary,  intrinse,  intrinsicate,  insist- 
tire,  and  various  others."  —  Hudson. 

"  The  vocabulary  of  Shakespeare  became  more  than  double 
that  of  any  other  writer  in  the  English  language.  Craik  esti- 
mates it  at  twenty-one  thousand  words,  without  counting  in- 
flectional forms,  while  that  of  Milton  was  but  seven  thousand. 
.  .  .  English  speech,  as  well  as  literature,  owes  more  to  him 
than  to  any  other  man."  —  Clark's  Elements  of  the  English 
Language,  p.  134. 

"  Shakespeare  displayed  a  greater  variety  of  expression  than 
probably  any  other  writer  in  any  language."  —  Mailer's  Science 
of  Language,  1st  Series,  p.  267. 

Mr.  Hallam  calls  attention  to  Shake-speare's  fond- 
ness for  words  used  in  their  primitive  meanings.  He 
sees  a  student's  instinct  in  this  attempt,  contrary  in 
many  cases  to  popular  usage,  to  keep  our  language 
true  to  its  Latin  roots.  He  gives  the  following 
examples :  — 

"  Things  base  and  vile,  holding  no  quantity  (value). 

Rivers  that  have  overborne  their  continents  (the  continente 
ripa  of  Horace). 

Imagination  all  compact. 

Something  of  great  constancy  (consistency). 

Sweet  Pyramus  translated  there. 

The  law  of  Athens  which  by  no  means  we  may  extenuate." 

We  append  a  few  additional  examples  under  this 
head :  — 

Expedient,  a  word  derived  from  the  Latin  expedire,  mean- 
ing to  disentangle  the  foot,  and  thus  to  hasten.     Shake-speare 


1 86  Bacon  vs.  Shakspere. 

always  uses  it  in  this  sense,  as  we  do  its  cognate  expeditious, 
never  applying  it  to  anything  merely  suitable  or  advantageous. 

Extravagant,  from  extra,  beyond,  outside  of;  and  va^are, 
to  wander.  Shake-speare  applies  the  word  to  vagrancy,  or 
straying  beyond  limits,  only,  as  in  '  Hamlet  '  :  — 

"  The  extravagant  and  erring  spirit  hies 
To  his  confine." —  I.  i. 

Probation.  This  word  ordinarily  means  a  period  of  trial.  In 
Shake-speare,  however,  it  means  proof,  from  probare,  to  prove. 

"  The  present  object  made  probation." 

Hamlet,  I.  i. 

Discourse  of  reason,  from  discurrere,  to  run  backward  and 
forward  between  objects,  as  in  ratiocitiation.     A  strict  Latinism. 

Contraction,  from  contrahere  (p.  p.  contractus),  to  draw  to- 
gether; that  is,  to  come  to  an  agreement,  as  in  marriage,  not 
merely  to  lessen  or  condense. 

"  O,  such  a  deed 

As  from  the  body  of  contraction  plucks 

The  very  soul." 

Ibid.,  III.  4. 

A  lust  of  the  blood  and  a  permission  of  the  will.  This  is 
Shake-speare's  definition  of  love.  What  is  meant  by  "  permis- 
sion of  the  will  "  ?  Permission  is  from  permittere,  to  send 
away  completely,  as  when  one,  utterly  banishing  his  will,  gives 
full  rein  to  a  passion.  This  meaning  of  the  word  has  never 
taken  root  in  English. 

Assume. 

"  Assume  a  virtue  if  you  have  it  not." 

Ibid. 

Does  Shake-speare  instruct  us  to  be  hypocrites?  No,  though 
all  the  commentators  so  agree.  Assume  is  from  ad-sumere,  to 
take  to,  to  acquire. 

Acquire  a  habit,  if  you  have  it  not. 

The  context,  especially  in  the  folio,  plainly  points  to  the  acqui- 
sition of  virtue  by  studied  formation  of  habits. 


Literary  Style.  187 


Modesty. 


"  An  excellent  play  ;  well  digested  in  the  scenes  ;  set  down  with 
as  much  modesty  as  cunning."  —  Hamlet,  II.  2. 

From  modestia,  meaning  fitness  of  things,  a  whole  in  which 
all  the  parts  have  their  proper  places  and  proportions.  Cicero 
uses  the  word  in  his  '  De  Officiis,'  but  feels  compelled  to  ex- 
plain it  to  the  Romans  themselves.  He  says  it  is  equivalent 
to  the  Greek  eira$la.  In  this  sense  it  is  so  apt  and  so  re- 
condite that  Dr.  Furness,  in  his  Variorum  edition  of  '  Ham- 
let,' asks  significantly,  in  italics,  "Did  not  Sh.  understand 
Latin  ?" 

These  examples  might  be  multiplied  by  the  thou- 
sand. They  are  found  as  plentifully  in  the  early 
plays  as  in  the  later  ones. 

b.  Bacon  had  also  a  wonderful  variety  at  his  com- 
mand in  manner  of  writing.  In  this  respect  he  was 
a  literary  chameleon.     Abbott  says  of  him  :  — 

"  His  style  varied  almost  as  much  as  his  handwriting;  but  it 
was  influenced  more  by  the  subject-matter  than  by  youth  or  old 
age.  Few  men  have  shown  equal  versatility  in  adapting  their 
language  to  the  slightest  change  of  circumstance  and  purpose. 
His  style  depended  upon  whether  he  was  addressing  a  king,  or 
a  great  nobleman,  or  a  philosopher,  or  a  friend ;  whether  he 
was  composing  a  state  paper,  magnifying  the  prerogative,  ex- 
tolling truth,  discussing  studies,  exhorting  a  judge,  sending  a 
New  Year's  present,  or  sounding  a  trumpet  to  prepare  the  way 
for  the  kingdom  of  man  over  nature." 

It  does  not  follow,  of  course,  that  because  he  had 
this  "  wonderful  ductility,"  as  Hallam  calls  it, 
therefore  he  wrote  the  plays.  The  converse  of 
the  proposition,  however,  is  worth  noting,  viz., 
without  it  he  would  have  been  disqualified  for  the 
task. 


1 88  Bacon  vs.  Shakspere. 

We  must  venture  one  step  farther.  Did  Bacon 
possess  among  his  numerous  varieties  of  style  that 
which  characterizes  Shakespeare?  On  this  point  it 
may  as  well  be  conceded  at  once  that  the  essays  by 
which  he  is  best  known  are,  for  purposes  of  this 
comparison,  the  least  useful  of  his  writings.  They 
are  sui  generis,  so  closely  packed  with  thought  that 
they  can  be  compared  only  to  cannon-balls.  Indeed, 
we  should  as  soon  think  of  comparing  the  chopped 
sea  of  the  English  Channel  to  the  long,  rolling  swell 
of  the  Atlantic. 

To  face  the  difficulty  squarely,  and  on  terms  most 
rigorous  for  Bacon,  we  give  an  example  of  each,  as 
follows :  — 

FROM    BACON. 

"  Prosperity  is  the  blessing  of  the  Old  Testament ;  adversity 
is  the  blessing  of  the  New,  which  carrieth  the  greater  benedic- 
tion and  the  clearer  revelation  of  God's  favor.  Yet,  even  in  the 
Old  Testament,  if  you  listen  to  David's  harp,  you  shall  hear  as 
many  hearse-like  airs  as  carols.  And  the  pencil  of  the  Holy 
Ghost  hath  labored  more  in  describing  the  afflictions  of  Job 
than  the  felicities  of  Solomon.  Prosperity  is  not  without  many 
fears  and  distastes,  and  adversity  is  not  without  many  comforts 
and  hopes.  We  see  in  needle-works  and  embroideries  it  is  more 
pleasing  to  have  a  lively  work  upon  a  sad  and  solemn  ground, 
than  to  have  a  dark  and  melancholy  work  upon  a  lightsome 
ground.  Judge,  therefore,  of  the  pleasure  of  the  heart  by  the 
pleasure  of  the  eye.  Certainly,  virtue  is  like  precious  odors 
when  they  are  incensed  or  crushed.  For  prosperity  doth  best 
discover  vice,  but  adversity  doth  best  discover  virtue."  — 
Essay  on  Ac/versify. 

FROM    SHAKESPEARE. 

"  Ay,  but  to  die,  and  go  we  know  not  where ; 
To  lie  in  cold  obstruction,  and  to  rot; 


Literary  Style.  189 

This  sensible  warm  motion  to  become 
A  kneaded  clod ;  and  the  delighted  spirit 
To  bathe  in  fiery  floods,  or  to  reside 
In  thrilling  regions  of  thick-ribbed  ice; 
To  be  imprisoned  in  the  viewless  winds, 
And  blown  with  restless  violence  round  about 
The  pendant  world." 

Measure  for  Measure,  III.  1. 

The  passage  quoted  above  from  Bacon,  written 
shortly  before  his  death,  is  the  one  Macaulay  se- 
lected to  show  that  Bacon's  writings,  contrary  to  the 
ordinary  course  of  things,  grew  more  ornate  and  fan- 
ciful as  he  grew  older.  "  With  him,"  we  are  told, 
"  the  fruit  came  first,  and  remained  till  the  last;  the 
blossoms  did  not  appear  till  late."  Why  is  it  that  we 
cannot  approach  "  Shake-speare,"  even  on  the  side 
of  Bacon,  without  encountering  a  miracle?  Why  do 
we  always  enter  a  land  of  enchantment,  —  the  last 
refuge  of  dryads  and  fairies,  where  Nature's  laws  are 
suspended,  where  we  have  harvests  without  seed, 
fruits  without  buds  or  flowers,  and  a  brilliant  old  age, 
preceded  by  a  dull  and  passionless  youth? 

"  Nature  is  always  true  to  herself ;  her  order  was  not  re- 
versed in  the  case  of  Bacon.  The  bud,  the  blossom,  the  fruit 
came  in  their  proper  and  accustomed  procedure.  But  what  if, 
like  a  prudent  husbandman,  Bacon  sent  each  to  its  appropriate 
market,  —  the  flowers  of  his  fancy  to  the  wits  and  players,  the 
fruits  of  his  judgment  to  the  sages  and  statesmen  of  his  age  ?  " 
—  Smith's  Bacon  and  Shakespeare,  p.  22. 

In  his  '  History  of  Henry  VII.,'  Bacon  adopted  a 
style  quite  the  reverse  of  that  of  the  '  Essays.'  It  is 
here  that  he  steps  off  the  tripod.  His  sentences  no 
longer  keep  step,  as  though  on  parade ;   they  have  a 


190  Bacon  vs.  Shakspere. 

free-and-easy,  almost  frolicsome  gait,  unparalleled  in 
the  whole  range  of  historical  literature. 

One  cannot  read  a  page  of  this  work  without  meet- 
ing such  specimens  as  these :  — ■ 

"  Empson  would  have  cut  another  chop  [of  money]  out  of 
him  if  the  king  had  not  died  in  the  instant." 

"  Perkin,  for  a  perfume  before  him  as  he  went,  caused  to  be 
published  a  proclamation." 

"  One  might  know  afar  off  where  the  owl  was  by  the  flight 
of  birds." 

"  The  King  began  to  find  where  the  shoe  did  wring  him.'" 

"  It  was  an  odious  thing  to  the  people  of  England  to  have  a 
king  brought  in  to  them  on  the  shoulders  of  Irish  and  Dutch." 

"  None  could  hold  the  book  so  well  to  prompt  and  instruct 
this  stage-play  as  she  could." 

"  She  was  to  him  as  Juno  was  to  .(Eneas,  stirring  both  heaven 
and  hell  to  do  him  mischief." 

"  Then  did  the  King  secretly  sow  Hydra's  teeth." 

"  The  marriage  halted  upon  both  feet." 

"  Their  snowball  did  not  gather  as  it  went." 

"  The  news  came  blazing  and  thundering  over  into  England." 

"  From  what  coast  should  this  blazing  star  appear?  " 

"  With  the  first  grain  of  incense  that  was  sacrificed  upon  the 
altar  of  peace,  Perkin  was  smoked  away." 

Bacon's  letters  give  us  still  another  style  of  compo- 
sition, less  severe  than  that  of  the  Essays,  and  more 
elegant  than  that  of  the  History.  They  contain  jew- 
els fit  to  sparkle  with  "  Shake-speare's  "  — 

"  On  the  stretched  forefinger  of  all  time." 

We  have  space  for  but  one  or  two  examples :  — 

"  It  may  be  you  will  do  posterity  good  if,  out  of  the  carcass 
of  dead  and  rotten  greatness,  as  out  of  Samson's  lion,  there  be 
honey  gathered  for  future  times." 


Literary  Style.  191 

How  beautifully  Bacon  refers  to  the  Hellenic 
myths    as  — 

"  Gentle  whispers,  which  from  more  ancient  traditions  came 
at  length  into  the  flutes  and  trumpets  of  the  Greeks." 

It  is  characteristic  of  a  very  full  mind  that  the  flow 
of  its  thoughts  is  often  disturbed  by  its  own  impetu- 
osity. Ideas  come  from  it  with  a  rush.  The  well  is 
bored  so  deep,  and  into  a  reservoir  so  vast,  that  the 
bursting  current  defies  restraint.  This  was  the  case 
both  with  Bacon  and  with  the  author  of  the  plays. 

"  Bacon's  mind,  with  its  fulness  and  eagerness  of  thought, 
was  at  all  times  apt  to  outrun  his  powers  of  grammatical 
expression."  —  Spcdding. 

"  The  tangled,  elliptical,  helter-skelter  sentences  into  which 
the  impetuous  imagination  of  Shakespeare  sometimes  hurries 
him."  —  CJiristopher  North. 

Bacon's  literary  style  had  one  peculiar  feature, 
apparent  under  all  its  phrases,  which  we  must  not 
omit  to  mention,  viz.,  a  tendency  to  run  into  triple 
forms  of  expression.  "  There  is  no  end  to  these 
forms  in  the  writings  of  Bacon,"  says  Professor 
Tavener.  They  beat  upon  the  ear  with  a  rhythm  as 
unmistakable  as  that  of  the  resounding  sea.  Indeed, 
we  might  have  the  courage  to  pronounce  them,  on 
the  part  of  our  author,  an  easily-besetting  sin,  were 
they  not  equally  conspicuous  in  "  Shakespeare"  as  the 
following  examples  will  show  :  — 

FROM    BACON. 

"  Studies  serve  for  delight,  for  ornament,  and  for  ability." 

"  To  spend  too  much  time  on  studies  is  sloth  ;  to  use  them 
too  much  for  ornament  is  affectation ;  to  make  judgment  wholly 
by  their  rules  is  the  humor  of  a  scholar." 


192  Bacon  vs.  Shakspere. 

"  Crafty  men  condemn  studies,  simple  men  admire  them,  and 
wise  men  use  them." 

"  Read  not  to  contradict  and  confute,  nor  to  believe  and  take 
for  granted,  nor  to  find  talk  and  discourse." 

"  Some  books  are  to  be  tasted,  others  to  be  swallowed,  and 
some  few  to  be  chewed  and  digested." 

"  Reading  maketh  a  full  man,  conference  a  ready  man,  and 
writing  an  exact  man." 

"  If  a  man  write  little,  he  had  need  have  a  great  memory;  if 
he  confer  little,  he  had  need  have  a  present  wit;  and  if  he  read 
little,  he  had  need  have  much  cunning." 

"  A  man  cannot  speak  to  his  own  son  but  as  a  father,  to  his 
wife  but  as  a  husband,  and  to  his  enemy  but  on  terms." 

"Give  ear  to  precept,  to  laws,  to  religion." 

"  Judges  ought  to  be  more  learned  than  witty,  more  reverent 
than  plausible,  and  more  advised  than  confident." 

"  Some  ants  carry  corn,  and  some  their  young,  and  some  go 
empty." 

"  They  cloud  the  mind,  they  lose  friends,  they  check  with 
business." 

"They  dispose  kings  to  tyranny,  husbands  to  jealousy,  wise 
men  to  irresolution." 

"  A  man's  nature  is  best  perceived  in  privateness,  for  there 
is  no  affectation;  in  passion,  for  that  putteth  a  man  out  of  his 
precepts ;  and  in  a  new  case  of  experiment,  for  there  custom 
leaveth  him." 

"  Young  men  are  fitter  to  invent  than  to  judge,  fitter  for 
execution  than  for  counsel,  and  fitter  for  new  projects  than  for 
settled  business." 

"  Nature  is  often  hidden,  sometimes  overcome,  seldom  ex- 
tinguished." 

'•It  is  heaven  upon  earth  to  have  a  man's  mind  move  in 
Charity,  rest  in  Providence,  and  turn  upon  the  poles  of  Truth." 


Literary  Style.  193 

FROM    "  SHAKE-SPEARE." 
"Some  are  born  great,  some  achieve  greatness,  and  some 
have  greatness  thrust  upon  them." 

"  It  would  be  argument  for  a  week,  laughter  for  a  month,  and 
a  good  jest  forever." 

"  One  draught  above  heat  makes  him  a  fool,  a  second  mads 
him,  and  a  third  drowns  him." 

"  'T  is  slander, 
Whose  edge  is  sharper  than  the  sword,  whose  tongue 
Outvenoms  all  the  worms  of  Nile,  whose  breath 
Rides  on  the  posting  winds." 

"  This  peace  is  nothing  but  to  rust  iron,  increase  tailors,  and 
breed  ballad-makers." 

"  Vengeance  is  in  my  heart,  death  in  my  hand, 
Blood  and  revenge  are  hammering  in  my  head." 

"  Had  I  power,  I  should 
Pour  the  sweet  milk  of  concord  into  Hell, 
Uproar  the  universal  peace,  confound 
All  unity  on  Earth." 
"  Alas,  poor  Romeo !  he  is  already  dead  !  stabbed  with  a 
white  wench's  black  eye  ;  run  through  the  ear  with  a  love-song  ; 
the  very  pin  of  his  heart  cleft  with  the  blind  bow-boy's  butt- 
shaft." 

"To  be  now  a  sensible  man,  by  and  by  a  fool,  and  presently 
a  beast." 

"  Ay,  but,  lady, 
That  policy  may  either  last  so  long, 
Or  feed  upon  such  nice  and  waterish  diet, 
Or  breed  itself  so  out  of  circumstance, 
That  I,  being  absent  and  my  place  supplied, 
My  General  will  forget  my  love  and  service." 
"  'T  was  mine,  'tis  his,  and  has  been  slave  to  thousands." 
"This  chair  shall  be  my  state,  this  dagger  my  sceptre,  and 
this  cushion  my  crown." 

"  She  is  a  woman,  therefore  may  be  woo'd  ; 
She  is  a  woman,  therefore  may  be  won  ; 
She  is  Lavinia,  therefore  must  be  loved." 
13 


194  Bacon  vs.  Shakspere. 

"  The  birds  chant  melody  on  every  bush  ; 
The  snake  lies  rolled  in  the  cheerful  sun ; 
The  green  leaves  quiver  with  the  cooling  wind." 

"  Methinks  she  's  too  low  for  a  high  praise,  too  brown  for  a 
fair  praise,  and  too  little  for  a  great  praise." 

"  She  says  she  will  die  if  he  love  her  not,  and  she  will  die 
ere  she  make  her  love  known,  and  she  will  die  if  he  woo  her." 

"  They  say  the  lady  is  fair ;  't  is  a  truth,  I  can  bear  them 
witness  ;  and  virtuous ;  't  is  so,  I  cannot  reprove  it ;  and  wise, 
but  for  loving  me." 

"  Fairest  Cordelia,  thou  art  most  rich,  being  poor ; 
Most  choice,  forsaken  ;  and  most  loved,  despised." 

"  Like  lean,  sterile  and  bare  land,  manured,  husbanded,  and 
tilled." 

"  Her  father  loved  me  ;  oft  invited  me  ; 
Still  questioned  me  the  story  of  my  life, 
From  year  to  year  —  the  battles,  sieges,  fortunes, 
That  I  have  passed." 

"  Sweet  Hero  !    she  is   wronged,   she   is   slandered,  she  is 

undone." 

"  I  have  marked 

A  thousand  blushing  apparitions 

To  start  into  her  face  ;  a  thousand  innocent  shames, 

In  angel  whiteness,  bear  away  those  blushes; 

And  in  her  eye  there  hath  appeared  a  fire, 

To  burn  the  errors  that  these  Princes  hold 

Against  her  maiden  truth." 

"  Who  is  here  so  base  that  would  be  a  bondman  ?  If  any, 
speak,  for  him  have  I  offended.  Who  is  here  so  rude  that 
would  not  be  a  Roman  ?  If  any,  speak,  for  him  have  I 
offended.  Who  is  here  so  vile  that  will  not  love  his  country  ? 
If  any,  speak,  for  him  have  I  offended." 

The  two  authors  balanced  their  sentences  on  the 
same  scales.1 

1  For  an  admirable  discussion  on  this  subject,  see  Donnelly's 
Great  Cryptogram,  p.  481  et  seq. 


Literary  Style.  195 

It  is  in  minor  peculiarities,  however,  that  we  find 
the  strongest  evidence  of  identity.  A  detective 
always  looks  at  what  is  unaffected  and  unconscious 
in  a  man  in  order  to  unmask  him.  The  shaping  of  a 
letter  of  the  alphabet  in  handwriting,  some  little  trick 
in  gait  or  voice,  an  intonation  that  dates  from  child- 
hood, these  are  clews  compared  with  which  elaborate 
tropes  and  figures  of  speech  are  of  small  account  for 
our  purpose.  We  want  those  sources  of  light  which 
cannot  be  hid  under  a  bushel.  Dr.  Theobald  has 
found  one  in  Bacon's  use  of  the  phrase  "  I  cannot 
tell."  It  is  an  instance  of  suppressio  vert,  not,  how- 
ever, with  intent  to  deceive,  but  to  give  the  thought 
a  greater  spring.  For  example,  referring  to  certain 
factious  rulings  in  a  lower  court  by  Justice  Coke, 
Bacon  says,  — 

"  Wherein  your  Lordships  may  have  heard  a  great  rattle,  and 
a  noise  of  pr<zmunire ;  and  "  —  here  he  adds,  as  a  sort  of  con- 
temptuous snapper  to  his  lash  —  "I  cannot  tell  what." 

He    simply   means  that  the  subject  is   beneath  fur- 
ther notice. 

Again,  alluding  to  a  possible  war  with  Spain,  he 
wonders  that  the  people  of  England  "  should  think 
of  nothing  but  reckonings,  and  audits,  and  meum,  and 
timm,  and  I  cannot  tell  what." 

On  another  occasion  he  pours  out  his  contempt 
upon  the  duelling  code,  on  the  ground  that  it  rests 
upon  absurd  conceits ;  that  is,  as  he  says,  "  upon 
what's  before-hand  and  what's  behind-hand,  and  I 
cannot  tell  what." 

So  in  a  letter  to  the  King,  who  was  importuned  to 


ic)6  Bacon  vs.  Shakspere. 

"rant  further  concessions  in  a   matter  in  which  the 

o 

petitioners  had  already  broken  their  agreements  with 
him,  Bacon  recalls  what  had  already  been  promised, 
—  "  lawful  and  settled  trades,  full  manufactures,  mer- 
chandise of  all  natures,  poll  money  or  brotherhood 
money,  and  I  cannot  tell  what." 

In  all  these  cases,  it  will  be  observed,  Bacon  makes 
a  pretence  of  ignorance  for  a  purpose,  —  a  rhetorical 
stratagem  common  enough  of  itself,  but  never  before 
or  since  in  English  literature  persistently  associated 
with  the  words  "  I  cannot  tell."  That  is  to  say, 
never  before  or  since  with  one  exception,  —  in 
"  Shake-speare."  The  author  of  the  plays  is  con- 
stantly indulging  in  this  same  idiosyncrasy.  For 
instance,  in  the  '  Merchant  of  Venice '  Shylock  nar- 
rates the  story  of  Jacob  outwitting  Laban  in  the 
breeding  of  sheep,  and  Antonio  asks  him,  — 

"  Was  this  inserted  to  make  interest  good, 
Or  is  your  gold  and  silver  ewes  and  rams  ?  " 

Shylock  replies,  — 

"  I  cannot  tell ;  I  make  it  breed  as  fast."  —  I.  3. 

In  Richard  III.  Queen  Elizabeth  demands  to  know 
why  Gloster  hates  her  and  her  family,  and  receives 
this  answer :  — 

"  I  cannot  tell ;  the  world  is  grown  so  bad 
That  wrens  may  prey  where  eagles  dare  not  perch. 
Since  every  Jack  becomes  a  gentleman, 
There  's  many  a  gentle  person  made  a  Jack.1' 

That  he  could  tell,  and  in  fact  did  tell,  her  rejoin- 
der implies :  — 


Literary  Style.  197 

"  Come,  come,  we  know  your  meaning,  brother  Gloster  ; 
You  envy  my  advancement,  and  my  friends."  —  I.  3. 

In  '  Macbeth '  a  messenger  brings  to  the  King 
news  of  a  bloody  battle  in  which  Macbeth  and 
Banquo  were  victorious.  He  says  of  these  war- 
riors :  — 

"  I  must  report  they  were 

As  cannons  overcharg'd  with  double  cracks ; 

So  they  doubly  redoubled  strokes  upon  the  foe ; 

Except  they  meant  to  bathe  in  reeking  wounds, 

Or  memorize  another  golgotha, 

I  cannot  tell."  —  I.  2. 

Not  to  multiply  these  examples  further,  as  we 
might  easily  do,  we  close  with  one  which,  though 
negative  in  its  character,  is  for  that  very  reason  the 
stronger  and  more  conclusive  in  our  favor.  Our 
readers  must  thank  Dr.  Theobald,  a  singularly  acute 
and  brilliant  as  well  as  fair-minded  critic,  for  it. 
We  quote  him  as  follows :  — 

"  In  3  'Henry  VI.'  the  Earl  of  Warwick  gives  a  vivid  de- 
scription of  the  battle  between  the  forces  led  by  himself  for  the 
King  and  those  led  by  the  Queen  and  Clifford  on  behalf  of  the 
young  prince.  This  passage  appears  in  the  original  version, 
'  The  Second  Part  of  the  Contention,'  published  in  1595,  thus,  — 

'  We  at  St.  Albans  met, 
Our  battle  joined,  and  both  sides  fiercely  fought. 
But  whether  'twas  the  coldness  of  the  King 
(He  looked  full  gently  on  his  warlike  Queen) 
That  robbed  my  soldiers  of  their  heated  spleen, 
Or  whether  't  was  report  of  her  success, 
Or  more  than  common  fear  of  Clifford's  rigour, 
Who  thunders  to  his  captains  blood  and  death, 
I  cannot  tell,'  — 

and  then  he  proceeds  to  tell  how  shamefully  they  were  defeated. 


198  Bacon  vs.  Shakspere. 

"  Now  in  this  case,  /  cannot  tell  is  not  used,  as  in  the  others 
which  I  have  quoted,  to  express  a  mock  perplexity ;  there  is  no 
counterfeit,  no  poetic  lie  here  ;  the  doubt  is  real.  The  speaker 
really  is  unable,  amongst  all  the  possible  causes  of  defeat,  to 
select  the  true  one,  or  to  say  how  many  causes  were  combined. 
Precisely  the  same  passage  occurs  in  3  '  Henry  VI.'  [published 
in  1623],  but  now  /  cannot  tell  is  changed  into  /  cannot  judge, 
evidently  because,  in  the  poet's  mind,  the  words  /  cannot  tell 
are  applicable  only  to  fantastic  cases,  not  to  cases  of  real  and 
sincere  suspense  of  judgment." 

In  further  elucidation  of  this  matter  of  style,  the 
following  examples  are  taken  promiscuously  from 
the  two  sets  of  works.  We  challenge  our  readers 
to  draw  the  lines  of  cleavage  between  them,  with- 
out assistance  from  the  foot-notes :  — 

"  It  is  a  wonderful  thing  to  see  the  semblable  coherence  of 
his  men's  spirits  and  his  own  :  they,  by  observing  him,  do  bear 
themselves  like  foolish  justices ;  he,  by  conversing  with  them,  is 
turned  into  a  justice-like  serving  man.  ...  It  is  certain  that 
either  wise  bearing  or  ignorant  carriage  is  caught,  as  men  take 
diseases,  one  of  another ;  therefore,  let  men  take  heed  of  their 
company."  1 

"  Contrary  is  it  with  hypocrites  and  impostors,  for  they,  in  the 
church  and  before  the  people,  set  themselves  on  fire,  and  are 
carried,  as  it  were,  out  of  themselves,  and  becoming  as  men 
inspired  with  holy  furies,  they  set  heaven  and  earth  together."  2 

"  Suspicions  among  thoughts  are  like  bats  among  birds,  they 
ever  fly  by  twilight."  3 

"Novelty  is  only  in  request;  and  it  is  as  dangerous  to  be 
aged  in  any  kind  of  course,  as  it  is  virtuous  to  be  constant 
in  any  undertaking.  There  is  scarce  truth  enough  alive  to 
make  societies  secure,  but  security  enough  to  make  fellowship 
accursed." 4 

1  2  Henry  IV.,  V.  2.  8  Essay  on  Suspicion. 

2  Bacon's  Med.  Sac.  i  Measure  for  Measure. 


Literary  Style.  199 

"  Extreme  self-lovers  will  set  a  man's  house  afire  to  roast 
their  own  eggs.1 

"  I  have  thought  that  some  of  Nature's  journeymen  had 
made  men,  and  not  made  them  well ;  they  imitated  humanity  so 
abominably."  2 

"  Faces  are  but  a  gallery  of  pictures,  and  talk  but  a  tinkling 
cymbal,  where  there  is  no  love."  3 

"  False  of  heart,  light  of  ear,  bloody  of  hand ;  hog  in  sloth, 
fox  in  stealth,  wolf  in  greediness,  dog  in  madness,  lion  in 
prey."  4 

"Weight  in  gold,  iron  in  hardness,  the  whale  in  size,  the  dog 
in  smell,  the  flame  of  gunpowder  in  rapid  extension."  6 

"  Men  must  learn  that  in  this  theatre  of  man's  life  it  is 
reserved  only  for  God  and  the  angels  to  be  lookers-on."6 

"  The  King  slept  out  the  sobs  of  his  subjects,  until  he  was 
awakened  with  the  thunderbolt  of  a  parliament."7 

"  Or  as  a  watch  by  night  that  course  doth  keep, 
And  goes  and  comes,  unwares  to  them  that  sleep."  8 

"  Or  like  the  deadly  bullet  of  a  gun, 
His  meaning  struck  her,  ere  his  words  begun."9 

"  As  smoke  from  yEtna  that  in  fire  consumes, 
Or  that  which  from  discharged  cannon  fumes."10 

"  As  if  between  them  twain  there  was  no  strife, 
But  that  life  lived  in  death,  and  death  in  life."  10 

"  As  a  tale  told  which  sometimes  men  attend, 
And  sometimes  not,  our  life  steals  to  an  end." 8 

"  As  silly,  jeering  idiots  are  with  kings, 
For  sportive  words  and  uttering  foolish  things."  10 

1  Advancement  of  Learning.  G  Advancement  of  Learning. 

2  Hamlet.  7    On  Spanish  Grievances. 

3  Essay  on  Friendship.  8  Translation  of  the  Psalms. 

4  King  Lear.  9  Venus  and  Adonis. 
6  Novum  Organum.  10  Lucrece. 


200  Bacon  vs.  Shakspere. 

"  For  as  the  sun  is  daily  new  and  old, 
So  is  my  love  still  telling  what  is  told."  l 

"  And  so  in  spite  of  death  thou  dost  survive, 
In  that  thy  likeness  still  is  left  alive."  2 

"  So  that  with  present  griefs  and  future  fears, 
Our  eyes  burst  forth  into  a  stream  of  tears."  3 

"  Thus  hast  thou  hanged  our  life  on  brittle  pins, 
To  let  us  know  it  will  not  bear  our  sins."  3 

"  Like  soldiers  when  their  Captain  once  doth  yield, 
They  basely  fly  and  dare  not  stay  the  field."  2 

"  But  like  a  stormy  day,  now  wind,  now  rain, 
Sighs  dry  her  cheeks,  tears  make  them  wet  again."  2 

"  Or  as  the  grass  which  cannot  term  obtain, 
To  see  the  summer  come  about  again."  3 

"  Or  call  it  Winter,  which,  being  full  of  care, 
Makes  Summer's  welcome  thrice  more  wish'd,  more  rare."  1 

For  the  above  metrical  selections  we  are  indebted 
to  the  Rev.  L.  C.  Manchester,  of  Lowell,  Massachu- 
setts, who  favors  us  with  the  following  explanatory- 
note  :  — 

"  As  one  interested  in  the  discussion  now  going  on,  I  send 
you  some  couplets  from  Bacon's  verse  and  some  from  Shake- 
speare's, having  a  certain  likeness  to  each  other,  but  differing 
from  the  parallelisms  already  noted.  Possibly  similar  likeness 
may  appear  between  any  other  two  writers  in  the  same  metre; 
if  not,  I  do  not  know  what  these  prove,  unless  we  are  to  think 
that  Shakespeare  wrote  the  'Translation  of  the  Psalms.'  That 
veracious  book,  '  Shakespeare's  True  Life,'  informs  us  that 
Shakespeare  was  often  Bacon's  guest  at  Twickenham,  and  was 
quite  '  thick '  with  him.  Can  it  be  that  some  day,  when  the  two 
were  together,  lying  perhaps  in  the  shade  of  those  cedars  pic- 
tured in  the  book,  the  player  gave  the  Translation  to  the  phi- 
losopher ?     The  work  is,  for  the  most  part,  as  much  inferior  to 

1  Sonnets.  2  Venus  and  Adonis. 

8  Translation  of  the  Psalms. 


Literary  Style.  201 

Bacon's  noblest  poetical  prose  as  it  is  to  the  grand  verse  of  the 
Shakespeare  drama. 

"  The  likeness  of  the  stanzas  in  question  is  in  the  concluding 
couplets,  —  Bacon's  being  in  the  metre  of  'Venus  and  Adonis.' 
It  is  not  in  sentiment  or  in  word,  but  in  the  ending  of  the 
stanzas  with  couplets  of  the  same  kind,  either  developing  a 
simile  already  introduced,  or  introducing  a  new  one  to  com- 
plete the  thought.  ('  Rhymes  knit  together  and  clinched  by 
a  couplet.'  —  T.  Watts,  quoted  by  Tyler,  in  his  edition  of  the 
Sonnets.)  " 

Walter's  '  True  Life  of  Shakespeare,'  referred  to  by 
Mr.  Manchester,  reminds  us  of  Lucian's  '  Veracious 
History;  '  but  the  author  lacks  the  candor  of  the 
Greek,  who  announced  that  his  book  contained  "  not 
a  single  truth  from  beginning  to  end."  It  is  a  pity 
that  Mr.  Walter  did  not  redeem  his  otherwise  admi- 
rable work  with  a  similar  confession.  There  would 
have  been,  then,  one  truth  in  each. 

After  all,  it  must  be  remembered  that  the  true 
poetic  spirit  implies  a  state  of  being  very  different 
from  that  in  which  the  mind  is  ordinarily  exercised. 
The  poet  is  a  man  "  beside  himself,"  —  almost  a 
second  personality.  Instances  are  known  where  the 
connection  between  them  seemed  for  a  time  utterly 
lost  to  consciousness.  Goethe's  fine  instinct  sus- 
pected depths  of  meaning,  in  the  second  part  of 
'  Faust,'  which  he  himself  had  not  fathomed.  A 
certain  orator  is  said  to  have  sometimes  wondered, 
in  the  midst  of  his  highest  flights,  what  strange 
power  had  taken  possession  of  his  mental  faculties. 
Thackeray  often  laughed  aloud  at  some  unexpected 
joke  cracked  under  his  pen.  Mrs.  Stowe  was  be- 
sought by  her  publishers  to  limit  her  great  story  to 
one  volume ;  she  replied  that  the  story  was  writing 
itself,  and  could  not  be  controlled.     When  Trollope 


202  Bacon  vs.  Shakspere. 

was  asked  why  he  had  permitted  Lily  Dale  to  "  marry 
that  man,"  —  "  Confound  it,"  was  the  reply,  "  she 
would  do  it !  "  It  is  manifestly  impossible  rightly  to 
estimate  a  man  under  a  condition  like  this  from  what 
we  know  of  him  under  another  and  totally  different 
condition.  We  are  in  the  same  predicament  with 
Archimedes,  who  wanted  to  move  the  earth  with  his 
lever,  but  could  find  no  place  for  the  fulcrum.  A 
garden  viewed  scientifically  in  the  light  of  genera 
and  species,  with  all  its  plants  catalogued  according 
to  seasons  of  blooming,  has  little  to  remind  us  of  one 
in  which  we  notice  only  the  perfumes  and  hues  of  the 
flowers ;  but  the  same  person  may  be  our  guide  in 
both.  The  seers  of  our  race  are  those  who  look  upon 
life  with  two  angles  of  vision. 

c.  Bacon's  versatility  appeared  also  in  his  inter- 
course with  persons  of  various  trades  and  occupa- 
tions in  life.  He  had  a  distinct  reputation  among 
his  contemporaries  for  ability  to  meet  men  on  their 
own  ground,  and  converse  with  them  in  the  special 
dialects  to  which  they  were  accustomed  in  their  pur- 
suits. He  was  especially  a  complete  master  of  the 
language  of  the  farm.  His  writings  are  full  of  homely 
provincialisms,  such  as  the  following:  "  Money  is  like 
muck,  not  good  except  it  be  spread  ;  "  1  "  If  you  leave 

1  Bacon  further  explained  this  function  of  money  thus  :  — 
"  When  it  lies  in  a  heap,  it  gives  but  a  stench  ;  when  it  is  spread 
upon  the  ground,  it  is  the  cause  of  much  fruit."  —  Apothegm. 
So  we  find  Cominius  praising  Coriolanus  for  looking 

"  Upon  things  precious,  as  they  were 
The  common  muck  of  the  world." 

Coriolanus,  II.  2. 

"The  annotators  of  'Coriolanus'  have  not  yet  found  out  what 
Shakespeare  meant  by  the  '  common  muck  of  the  world.'  "  —  R.  M. 
Theobald. 


Versatility  and  Wit.  203 

your  staddles  too  thick,  you  will  never  have  clean  un- 
derbrush ;  "  and  many  of  the  flowers  of  rhetoric  with 
which  his  works  are  bestrewed  strike  their  roots  down 
into  hawking  and  hunting. 

"  I  have  heard  him  entertain  a  country  lord  in  the  proper 
terms  relating  to  hawks  and  dogs ;  and  at  another  time  outcant 
a  London  chirurgeon."  —  Francis  Osborn. 

"In  conversation  he  [Bacon]  could  assume  the  most  differ- 
ent characters,  and  speak  the  language  proper  to  each,  with  a 
facility  that  was  perfectly  natural,  —  a  happy  versatility  of  gen- 
ius which  all  men  wish  to  arrive  at,  but  which  one  or  two  only 
in  an  age  are  seen  to  possess."  —  Mallei 'fs  Life  of  Bacon. 

d.  In  another  and  (for  our  purpose)  very  impor- 
tant quality  of  mind  the  two  authors  were  also  con- 
spicuously alike ;  they  had  each  a  wonderful  faculty 
for  detecting  remote  and  subtle  analogies.  It  is  this 
that  constitutes  the  essence  of  wit,  and  confers  upon 
a  writer  the  rare  gift  of  enlivening,  as  we  go  along 
with  him,  even  a  worn  and  dusty  highway  with  de- 
lightful vistas  on  either  side. 

"In  wit,  if  by  wit  be  meant  the  power  of  perceiving  analo- 
gies between  things  which  appear  to  have  nothing  in  common, 
Bacon  never  had  an  equal,  not  even  Cowley,  not  even  the 
author  of  Hudibras.  .  .  .  Occasionally  it  obtained  the  mastery 
over  all  his  other  faculties,  and  led  him  into  absurdities  into 
which  no  dull  man  could  have  fallen."  —  Macaulay's  Essay  on 
Bacon. 

"  Shakespeare  perceived  a  thousand  distant  and  singular  re- 
lations between  the  objects  which  met  his  view.  He  had  the 
habit  of  that  learned  subtlety  which  sees  and  assimilates  every- 
thing, and  leaves  no  hint  of  resemblances  unnoticed."  —  Prof. 
Guizot. 

e.  Again,  Bacon  was  constantly  making  alterations 
in  his  writings,  even  after  they  had  gone  to  press.    Of 


204  Bacon  vs.  Shakspere. 

the  ten  essays  which  he  published  in  1597,  nearly  all 
were  more  or  less  changed  and  enlarged  for  the  edi- 
tion of  1612.  Those  of  1612,  including  the  ten  before 
mentioned,  were  again  enlarged  for  publication  in 
1625.  It  seems  to  have  been  almost  impossible  for 
an  essay  to  get  to  the  types  a  second  time  without 
passing  through  his  reforming  hand,  —  in  one  in- 
stance actually  losing  identity  in  the  transition. 

This  was  precisely  the  fate  of  the  plays.  Some  of 
them  underwent  complete  transformation  between  the 
quartos  and  the  folio,  becoming  practically  new  com- 
positions, and,  what  is  very  singular,  working  away 
from  the  requirements  of  the  stage  into  forms  more 
purely  artistic  and  literary. 

"  Every  change  in  the  text  of  '  Hamlet '  has  impaired  its  fit- 
ness for  the  stage,  and  increased  its  value  for  the  closet  in  exact 
and  perfect  proportion.  .  .  .  Scene  by  scene,  line  for  line,  stroke 
upon  stroke,  and  touch  after  touch,  he  went  over  the  old  ground 
again,  to  make  it  worthy  of  himself  and  his  future  students."  — 
Swinburne. 

If  there  were  two  workshops,  it  is  certain  that  one 
set  of  rules  governed  both. 

/.  Bacon's  sense  of  humor,  as  has  already  been 
shown,  was  phenomenal,  and  yet  it  had  one  curb 
which  it  always  obeyed. 

In  his  '  Essay  of  Discourse'  he  lays  down  the  rule, 
among  others,  that  religion  should  never  be  the  butt 
of  a  jest.  Accordingly,  it  is  impossible  to  find,  in  all 
the  wild,  rollicking  fun  of  the  plays,  even  a  flippancy 
at  the  expense  of  the  Church. 

g.  In  the  local  dialect  of  the  University  of  Cam- 
bridge, students  do  not  live,  but  "  keep,"  in  rooms.1 

1  Dickens's  Dictionary  of  Oxford  and  Cambridge. 


Identical  Friends.  205 

In  '  Titus  Andronicus,'  one  of  the  earliest  of  the 
plays,  written,  as  White  suggests,  when  the  author's 
mind  was  fresh  from  academic  pursuits,  we  find  the 
following:  — 

"  Knock  at  his  study,  where,  they  say,  he  keeps." 

Bacon  was  educated  at  Cambridge. 

h.  The  two  authors  had  the  same  friends.  Bacon 
and  the  Earl  of  Southampton  were  fellow-lodgers  at 
Gray's  Inn,  and  for  many  years  devoted  adherents 
of  Essex.  The  "  Shake-speare  "  poems,  'Venus  and 
Adonis '  and  '  Lucrece,'  were  dedicated  to  South- 
ampton. The  Earls  of  Pembroke  and  Montgomery 
were  shareholders  with  Bacon  in  Lord  Somer's  ill- 
fated  expedition  to  America ;  to  them  was  dedicated 
the  first  collected  edition  of  the  plays.  They  had 
also  the  same  enemies.  Lord  Cobham  was  one  of 
the  leaders  of  the  party  opposed  to  Essex.  Among 
his  ancestors  was  the  noble  martyr,  Sir  John  Old- 
castle,  whose  name  the  dramatist,  with  his  usual 
deference  to  the  established  order  of  things,  at  first 
adopted  for  the  character  of  FalstafT.  Even  after  he 
had  made  the  change,  he  could  not  forbear  the  fol- 
lowing sly  hit  at  the  family :  — 

"  Fal.  And  is  not  my  host  of  the  tavern  a  most  sweet 
wench  ? 

"  Prince  Hen.  As  the  honey  of  Hybla,  my  old  lord  of  the 
castle."  —  1  Henry  IV.,  I.  2. 

The  head  of  the  party  to  which  Cobham  belonged 
was  Lord  Burleigh.  He  was  Bacon's  uncle,  but  Ba- 
con had  private  as  well  as  public  reasons  for  oppos- 
ing him.     Burleigh  stood,  like  an  angel  with  a  drawn 


206  Bacon  vs.  Shakspere. 

sword,  directly  in  the  path  to  that  which  Bacon  cov- 
eted, —  an  office  under  the  Queen.  No  entreaty, 
either  of  Bacon  or  of  Bacon's  mother,  —  except  per- 
haps on  one  occasion,  when  he  acted  perfunctorily,  — 
could  move  him.  Even  Anthony  Bacon,  who  had 
spent  thirteen  years  in  France  and  Italy  in  voluntary 
service  to  the  government  without  compensation, 
and  who  on  his  return  home  applied  to  Burleigh  for 
some  position  that  would  enable  him  in  a  measure 
to  recoup  his  depleted  fortune,  received  only  "  fair 
words,"  —  such  words,  according  to  his  own  account 
of  them,  as  make  "  fools  fair,"  but  bitterly  disappoint- 
ing from  one  who  had  turned  the  applicant's  "  ten 
years'  harvest  into  his  own  barn  without  a  half-penny 
charge."  It  was  this  treatment  that  finally  drove  the 
two  brothers  into  the  ranks  of  the  opposition,  and  at 
one  time,  to  our  amazement,  involved  them  in  at- 
tempts to  displace  Burleigh,  and  install  Essex  as 
chief  counsellor  of  the  crown. 

The  Lord  Treasurer's  conduct  in  this  matter  is 
easily  accounted  for  without  the  usual  imputation 
of  unworthy  motives :  he  did  not  appreciate  his 
nephews.  He  saw  in  them,  and  particularly  in 
Francis,  qualities  of  mind  which  he  deemed  un- 
suited  for  official  life.  Himself  a  dull,  plodding, 
unimaginative,  thoroughly  practical  and  conscien- 
tious statesman,  he  had  no  sympathy  with  any  one 
who,  as  Essex  said  of  Francis,  was  full  of  "  poetic 
conceits."  He  contrived  not  to  pay  Spenser  a  small 
pension  which  the  government  had  voted,  evidently 
thinking,  with  Plato,  that  in  a  good  commonwealth 
there  is  no  place  for  a  poet. 


Burleigh  as  Polonius.  207 

Bacon,  as  author  of  '  Hamlet,'  took  his  revenge. 
He  satirized  his  uncle  as  Polonius.  What  could 
represent  the  old  minister's  prolixity  better  than  the 
following :  — 

"  Pol.     My  liege  and  madam,  to  expostulate 

What  majesty  should  be,  what  duty  is, 

Why  day  is  day,  night  night,  and  time  is  time, 

Were  nothing  but  to  waste  night,  day  and  time. 

Therefore,  since  brevity  is  the  soul  of  wit, 

And  tediousness  the  limbs  and  outward  flourishes, 

I  will  be  brief.     Your  noble  son  is  mad. 

Mad  call  I  it  ;  for,  to  define  true  madness, 

What  is 't  but  to  be  nothing  else  but  mad  ? 


And  now  remains 
That  we  find  out  the  cause  of  this  effect, 
Or  rather  say,  the  cause  of  this  defect; 
For  this  effect  defective  comes  by  cause  : 
Thus  it  remains,  and  the  remainder  thus. 
Perpend."  Hamlet,  II.  2. 

In  early  life  Burleigh  was  offered  the  Secretary- 
ship by  Queen  Mary,  with  the  proviso  that  he  must 
change  his  religion.     His  answer  is  historic:  — 

"  I  have  been  taught  and  am  bound  to  serve  my  God  first, 
and  next  my  Queen." 

Polonius  utters  the  same  sentiment:  — 

"  I  hold  my  duty  as  I  hold  my  soul, 
Both  to  my  God,  one  to  my  gracious  king." 

The  ten  famous  precepts  which  Lord  Burleigh 
gave  to  his  son  Robert,  departing  for  Paris,  are  re- 
plete with  worldly  wisdom  ;  but  they  are  eclipsed  by 
the  ten  still  more  famous  ones  which  Polonius  deliv- 


2o8  Bacon  vs.  Shakspere. 

ered  to  his  son  Laertes,  also  on  the  eve  of  departure 
for  Paris :  — 

1.  "  Give  thy  thoughts  no  tongue, 

2.  Nor  any  unproportion'd  thought  his  act. 

3.  Be  thou  familiar,  but  by  no  means  vulgar ; 

4.  The  friends  thou  hast,  and  their  adoption  tried, 
Grapple  them  to  thy  soul  with  hooks  of  steel, 
But  do  not  dull  thy  palm  with  entertainment 
Of  each  new-hatch'd,  unpledg'd  comrade. 

5.  Beware 
Of  entrance  to  a  quarrel ;  but,  being  in, 
Bear't  that  th'  opposed  may  beware  of  thee. 

6.  Give  every  man  thy  ear,  but  few  thy  voice ; 

7.  Take  each  man's  censure,  but  reserve  thy  judgment. 

8.  Costly  thy  habit  as  thy  purse  can  buy, 

But  not  expressed  in  fancy ;  rich,  not  gaudy  : 
For  the  apparel  oft  proclaims  the  man ; 
And  they  in  France,  of  the  best  rank  and  station, 
Are  most  select  and  generous,  chief  in  that. 

9.  Neither  a  borrower  nor  a  lender  be  ; 
For  loan  oft  loses  both  itself  and  friend, 
And  borrowing  dulls  the  edge  of  husbandry. 

10.    This  above  all,  —  to  thine  own  self  be  true ; 
And  it  must  follow,  as  the  night  the  day, 
Thou  canst  not  then  be  false  to  any  man." 

Hamlet,  I.  3. 

One  of  the  most  prominent  features  of  Burleigh's 
administration  was  his  reliance  upon  the  help  of  spies 
and  informers.  For  twenty  years  he  kept  a  small 
army  of  these  emissaries  under  his  pay,  hesitating  at 
no  espionage  or  treachery  to  gain  the  secrets  of  his 


Lord  Burleigh,  as  Polonitis.  209 

enemies.  "  They  were  a  vile  band,"  says  a  recent 
writer  in  the  Dictionary  of  National  Biography,  "the 
employment  of  which  could  not  but  bring  some 
measure  of  dishonor  upon  their  employer.  Hence 
the  shame  and  indelible  reproach  which  attach  them- 
selves to  Cecil's  conduct  of  affairs,  and  which  not  all 
the  difficulties  of  his  position  or  the  unexampled 
provocations  which  he  endured  can  altogether  ex- 
cuse." He  even  forced  Bishop  Parker  to  take  the 
confessions  of  a  prisoner  whom  torture  could  not 
affect,  in  the  disguise  of  a  Catholic  priest. 

It  is  to  this  conspicuous  trait  in  Burleigh's  char- 
acter that  we  owe  the  following  exquisite  scene:  — 

"  Enter  Polonius  and  Reynaldo. 

Pol.    Give  him  this  money,  and  these  notes,  Reynaldo. 

Rey.    I  will,  my  lord. 

Pol.    You  shall  do  marvellous  wisely,  good  Reynaldo, 
Before  you  visit  him,  to  make  inquiry 
Of  his  behaviour. 

Rey.    My  lord,  I  did  intend  it. 

Pol.    Marry,  well  said  ;  very  well  said.     Look  you,  sir, 
Inquire  me  first  what  Danksters  are  in  Paris  : 
And  how,  and  who ;  what  means,  and  where  they  keep ; 
What  company,  at  what  expense ;  and  finding, 
By  this  encompassment  and  drift  of  question, 
That  they  do  know  my  son,  come  vou  more  nearer 
Than  your  particular  demands  will  touch  it. 
Take  you,  as  't  were,  some  distant  knowledge  of  him  ; 
As  thus,  —  '  I  know  his  father,  and  his  friends, 
And,  in  part,  him  ; '  —  do  you  mark  this,  Reynaldo  ? 

Rey.    Ay,  very  well,  my  lord. 

Pol.     'And,  in  part,  him;  but,'  you  may  say,  'not  well  ; 
But,  if 't  be  he  I  mean,  he  's  very  wild, 
Addicted  so  and  so ; '  and  there  put  on  him 
What  forgeries  you  please ;  marry,  none  so  rank 

14 


210  Bacon  vs.  Shakspere. 

As  may  dishonor  him  ;  take  heed  of  that ; 

But,  sir,  such  wanton,  wild,  and  usual  slips 

As  are  companions  noted  and  most  known 

To  youth  and  liberty. 
Rey.  As  gaming,  my  lord. 

Pol.    Ay,  or  drinking,  fencing,  swearing,  quarrelling, 

Drabbing  ;  —  you  may  go  so  far. 
Rey.    My  lord,  that  would  dishonor  him. 
Pol.    'Faith,  no ;  as  you  may  season  it  in  the  charge. 

You  must  not  put  another  scandal  on  him, 

That  he  is  open  to  incontinency ; 

That 's    not    my   meaning ;    but    breathe    his    faults    so 
quaintly, 

That  they  may  seem  the  taints  of  liberty ; 

The  flash  and  out-break  of  a  fierce  mind ; 

A  savageness  in  unreclaimed  blood, 

Of  general  assault. 
Rey.  But,  good  my  lord,  — 

Pol.    Wherefore  should  you  do  this  ? 
Rey.  Ay,  my  lord, 

I  would  know  that. 
Pol.  Marry,  sir,  here  's  my  drift ; 

And,  I  believe,  it  is  a  fetch  of  warrant. 

You,  laying  these  slight  sullies  on  my  son, 

As  'twere  a  thing  a  little  soil'd  i'  th'  working, 

Mark  you, 

Your  party  in  converse,  him  you  would  sound, 

Having  ever  seen  in  the  prenominate  crimes 

The  youth  you  breathe  of  guilty,  be  assur'd, 

He  closes  with  you  in  this  consequence  : 

'  Good  sir,'  or  so  ;  or  '  friend,'  or  '  gentleman,'  — 

According  to  the  phrase,  or  the  addition, 

Of  man  and  country. 
Rey.  Very  good,  my  lord. 

Pol.    And  then,  sir,  does  he  this,  —  he  does  — 

What  was  I  about  to  say?     [By  the  Mass]  I  was 

About  to  say  something;  where  did  I  leave? 
Rey.    At  '  closes  in  the  consequence,' 

As  '  friend  or  so,'  and  'gentleman.' 


Lord  Burleigh,  as  Polonius.  2 1 1 

Pol.     At  '  closes  in  the  consequence,'  —  ay,  marry, 

He  closes  with  you  thus ;  —  'I  know  the  gentleman ; 

I  saw  him  yesterday,  or  t'  other  day. 

Or  there,  or  then  ;  with  such  or  such ;  and,  as  you  say, 

There  he  was  gaming ;  there  o'ertook  in 's  rouse  ; 

There  falling  out  at  tennis ;  or  perchance, 
'  I  saw  him  enter  such  a  house  of  sale  '  — 

Videlicet,  a  brothel,  —  or  so  forth.  — 

See  you  now; 

Your  bait  of  falsehood  takes  this  carp  of  truth, 

And  thus  do  we  of  wisdom  and  of  reach, 

With  windlaces,  and  with  assays  of  bias, 

By  indirections  find  directions  out. 

So  by  my  former  lecture  and  advice, 

Shall  you  my  son.     You  have  me,  have  you  not? 
Rey.    My  lord,  I  have. 

Pol.  God  b'  wi'  you  ;  fare  you  welL 

Rey.    Good  my  lord. 

Pol.     Observe  his  inclination  in  yourself. 
Rey.    I  shall,  my  lord. 
Pol.    And  let  him  ply  his  music. 
Rey.  Well,  my  lord.         \Exit." 

An  intelligent  writer  in  '  Notes  and  Queries '  (Jan- 
uary 31,  1863)  declares  that  "Polonius  is  not  so 
much  a  satire  as  a  portrait  of  Lord  Burleigh."  He 
adds  innocently,  "  Shakespeare  may  have  had  some 
prejudices  against  this  celebrated  minister."  Con- 
sidering the  relations  that  existed  between  Francis 
Bacon  and  his  cousin  Robert  Cecil,  and  the  well- 
known  character  of  the  latter,  we  doubt  whether  any- 
thing more  comical  than  the  foregoing  scene  in 
'Hamlet'  can  be  found  in  the  whole  range  of 
English  literature. 

Bacon's  most  implacable  enemy,  however,  was  Sir 
Edward  Coke.     The  two  were  constant  rivals  for  the 


212  Bacon  vs.  Shakspere. 

favor  of  the  court  and  for  the  highest  honors  of 
the  profession  to  which  they  belonged.  They  were 
rivals,  too,  for  the  hand  of  Lady  Hatton,  the  beauti- 
ful widow,  who  finally  waived  the  eight  objections 
which  her  friends  urged  against  Coke  (his  seven 
children  and  himself) ,  and  gave  him  the  preference. 
At  one  time  the  contention  became  so  personal  and 
bitter  that  Bacon  appealed  to  the  government  for 
help. 

In  'Twelfth  Night,'  we  find  the  following  portrait- 
ure of  Coke,  drawn  by  no  friendly  hand :  — 

"Sir  Toby.  Taunt  him  with  the  license  of  ink;  if  thou 
thou*st  him  thrice,1  it  shall  not  be  amiss ;  and  as  many  lies  as 
will  lie  in  thy  sheet  of  paper,  although  the  sheet  were  big 
enough  for  the  Bed  of  Ware  in  England,  set  'em  down."  — 

III.  2. 

"  Coke  was  exhibited  on  the  stage  in  '  Twelfth  Night '  for  his 
ill  usage  of  Raleigh."  —  Disraeli's  Curiosities  of  Literature, 
II.  531. 

i.  The  philosopher  and  the  dramatist  were  at  one, 
also,  in  the  ease  and  frequency,  not  to  say  unscrupu- 
lousness,  with  which  they  appropriated  to  their  own 
use  the  writings  of  others.  Bacon's  audacity  in  this 
respect  is  unequalled  in  all  the  world's  literature, 
unless  we  except  "  Shake-speare."  Both  authors  lit 
their  torches,  as  Rawley  says  of  Bacon,  "  at  every 
man's  candles." 

j.  Bacon's  home  was  at  St  Albans,  on  the  river 
Ver,  especially  interesting  as  the  site  of  the  ancient 

1  A  reference  to  Coke's  brutal  speech  at  the  trial  of  Sir  Walter 
Raleigh,  in  which  occur  these  words  :  "  Thou  viper  !  for  I  thou  thee, 
thou  traitor!"  Theobald  (1733)  cites  the  passage  as  a  proof  of 
"  Shake-speare's  "  detestation  of  Coke. 


Puns.  213 

city  of  Verulamium.  Among  the  local  traditions  of 
the  place,  verified  by  old  coins  found  in  the  soil,  is 
one  respecting  a  king  named  Cymbeline,  who  reigned 
there  in  the  early  part  of  the  Christian  era,  and  who 
had  intimate  relations  with  Rome.  The  story  of 
Cymbeline  furnished  some  of  the  incidents,  even  to 
minute  particulars,  of  the  Shakespearean  play  that 
bears  his  name. 

k.  Bacon  was  very  fond  of  puns.  He  not  only 
handed  down  to  posterity  numerous  specimens  found 
in  his  reading,  but  he  immortalized  some  of  his  own 
in  the  Apothegms.  The  Spanish  Ambassador,  a  Jew, 
happening  to  leave  England  Easter  morning,  paid 
his  parting  respects  to  Bacon,  wishing  him  a  good 
Easter.  Bacon  replied,  wishing  his  friend  a  good 
pass-over.  The  plays  also  abound  in  this  species  of 
wit.  A  remarkable  instance  may  be  quoted  from  the 
'  Merry  Wives  of  Windsor,'  thus  :  — 

"  Evans.    Accusative-,  king,  hang,  hog. 
"  Quick.    Hang  hog  is  Latin  for  Bacon,  I  warrant  you."  — 
IV.  1. 

This  refers  to  a  pun  perpetrated  by  Sir  Nicholas 
Bacon,  father  of  Francis.  One  day  a  culprit,  named 
Hog,  appealed  to  Judge  Bacon's  mercy  on  the  ground 
that  they  were  of  the  same  family.  "  Aye,"  replied 
the  Judge,  "  but  you  and  I  cannot  be  kindred  except 
you  be  hanged ;  for  hog  is  not  bacon  until  it  be  well 
hanged." 

The  appearance  of  this  family  pun  in  the  plays  is 

significant.1 

1  "  Bacon  was  fond,  also,  of  speaking  of  his  great  contemporaries, 
of  quoting  their  wit  and  recording  their  sayings.     In  his  apothegms 


214  Bacon  vs.  Shakspere. 

I.  Bacon's  prose  works  overflow  with  citations 
from  classical  literature.  They  are  filled  to  satura- 
tion with  ancient  lore.  This  is  true  also  of  the  plays. 
They  make  us  breathe  the  very  air  of  Greece  and 
Rome.  The  following  is  only  a  partial  list  of  the 
classical  authors,  the  influence  of  whose  writings  has 
been  traced  in  them :  Homer,  Plato,  Aristotle,  Sopho- 
cles, Euripides,  yEschylus,  Lucian,  Galen,  Ovid,  Lu- 
cretius, Tacitus,  Horace,  Virgil,  Plutarch,  Seneca, 
Catullus,  Livy,  and  Plautus,  all  of  whom  were  known 
to  Bacon.     A  curious  instance  is  the  following:  — 

"  Thy  promises  are  like  Adonis'  gardens, 
That  one  day  bloomed  and  fruitful  were  the  next." 

I  Henry  VI,  I.  6. 

This  reference  puzzled  all  the  commentators  for 
nearly  three  hundred  years,  —  Richard  Grant  White 
declaring  that  "  no  mention  of  any  such  gardens  in 
the  classic  writings  of  Greece  or  Rome  is  known  to 
scholars."  It  has  recently  been  found,  however,  in 
Plato's  '  Phcedrus,'  —  a  work  that  had  not  been  trans- 
lated into  English  in  Shakespeare's  time. 

"  It  is  the  ease  and  naturalness  with  which  the  classical  allu- 
sions are  introduced  to  which  it  is  the  most  important  that  we 

we  find  nearly  all  that  is  known  of  Raleigh's  power  of  repartee.  How 
came  such  a  gatherer  of  wit,  humors,  and  characters  to  ignore  the 
greatest  man  living  ?  Had  he  a  reason  for  this  omission  ?  It  were 
idle  to  assume  that  Bacon  failed  to  see  the  greatness  of  Lear  and 
Macbeth."—  The  (London)  Athenceum,  Sept.  13,  1856. 

"  Although  Bacon  quotes  nearly  every  great  writer  in  his  works, 
he  never  quoted  Shakespeare.  Is  it  for  the  same  reason  that  the 
author  of  the  '  Waverley  Novels '  used,  as  quotations  for  the  headings 
of  his  chapters,  passages  from  every  poet  but  Scott  ? "  —  George 
Stronach,  in  Bacon  Journal,  1886. 


Continental  Travel.  215 

should  attend.  They  are  not  purple  patches  sewed  on  to  a  piece 
of  plain  homespun  ;  they  are  inwoven  in  the  web. 

"  He  [Farmer]  leaves  us  at  full  liberty,  for  anything  he  has 
advanced,  to  regard  Shakespeare  as  having  had  a  mind  richly 
furnished  with  the  mythology  and  history  of  the  times  of  an- 
tiquity, an  intimate  and  inwrought  acquaintance,  such  as  per- 
haps few  profound  scholars  possess."  —  Hunter. 

"  What  kind  of  culture  Shakespeare  had  is  uncertain ;  how 
much  he  had  is  disputed;  that  he  had  as  much  as  he  wanted, 
and  of  whatever  kind  he  wanted,  must  be  clear  to  whoever  con- 
siders the  question.  Dr.  Farmer  has  proved,  in  his  entertaining 
essay,1  that  he  got  everything  at  second-hand  from  translations, 
and  that  where  his  translator  blundered  he  loyally  blundered 
too.  But  Goethe,  the  man  of  widest  acquirement  in  modern 
times,  did  precisely  the  same  thing."  —  Lowell's  Among  My 
Books,  p.  188. 

m.  Bacon  spent  several  years  in  study  and  travel 
on  the  Continent;  it  is  said  that  he  was  meditating  a 
tour  in  the  East  when  the  sudden  death  of  his  father 
called  him  home.  Internal  evidences  make  it  almost 
absolutely  certain  that  the  author  of  the  plays  ac- 
quired his  exact  knowledge  of  Italian  scenes  and 
customs  from  actual  residence  in  Italy. 

"  The  most  striking  difficulty  lies,  perhaps,  in  the  descriptions 
of  foreign  scenes,  particularly  of  Italian  scenes.  —  descriptions 
so  numerous  and  so  marvellously  accurate  that  it  is  almost  im- 
possible to  believe  that  they  were  written  by  a  man  who  lived 
in  London  and  Stratford,  who  never  left  this  island,  and  who 
saw  the  world  only  from  a  stroller's  booth."  —  The  (London) 
Athenceum,  Sept.  13,  1886. 

"  It  cannot  be  denied  that  Shakespeare,  in  the  '  Merchant  of 
Venice,'  has  carefully  observed  and  wonderfully  hit  the  local 

1  In  three  papers,  marked  by  his  well-known  learning  and  literary 
power,  Dr.  Maginn  pierced  the  pedantic  and  inflated  essay  of  Farmer 
into  hopeless  collapse."  —  Prof.  Baynes,  Freezer's  Magazine,  1S79. 


216  Bacon  vs.  Shakspere. 

coloring.  There  lies  over  this  drama  an  inimitable  and  decid- 
edly Italian  atmosphere.  Everything  in  it  is  so  faithful,  so 
fresh,  and  so  true  to  nature,  that  in  this  respect  the  play  cannot 
possibly  be  excelled. 

"  Portia  sends  her  servant  to  Padua  to  fetch  certain  '  notes 
and  garments,'  and  then  meet  her  at  the  '  common  ferry '  trad- 
ing to  Venice.  If  Shakespeare  had  taken  the  ride  himself  be- 
fore describing  it,  as  Sir  Walter  Scott  took  that  from  Loch 
Vennachar  to  Stirling,  described  in  the  '  Lady  of  the  Lake,' 
the  statements  could  not  agree  better. 

"  The  ferry  takes  us  across  the  '  Laguna  Morta,'  and  up  the 
great  canal  to  the  city,  where  we  in  spirit  land  at  the  Rialto. 
Shakespeare  displays  no  less  accurate  knowledge  of  this  locality 
than  of  the  villas  along  the  Brenta,  as  he  does  not  confound 
the  Isola  di  Rialto  with  the  Ponte  di  Rialto.  He  knows  that  the 
'exchange  where  merchants  most  do  congregate'  is  upon  the 
former."  —  Else's  Essays  on  Shakespeare,  p.  278. 

"  '  This  night,  methinks,  is  but  the  daylight  sick  ; 
It  looks  a  little  paler ;  't  is  a  day 
Such  as  the  day  is  when  the  sun  is  hid.' 

Merchant  of  Venice,  V.  1 . 

"  The  light  of  the  moon  and  stars  [in  Italy]  is  almost  as  yel- 
low as  the  sunlight  in  England.  .  .  .  Two  hours  after  sunset, 
on  the  night  of  the  full  moon,  we  have  seen  so  far  over  the 
lagunes  that  the  night  seemed  only  a  paler  day,  — '  a  little 
paler.'  " —  Charles  Knight. 

A  correspondent  of  the  '  Baltimore  Sun '  writing 
under  date  of  August  16,  1895,  at  Rome,  says:  — 

"  It  seems  natural  that  the  Italians  should  give  attention  to 
the  Shakespearean  drama.  Much  of  it  has  been  taken  from 
Italian  sources.  I  am  inclined  to  think  that  no  less  than  two- 
thirds  of  the  plays  of  Shakespeare  are  derived,  in  a  more  or  less 
direct  form,  from  Italian  sources,  —  either  renaissance  Italian 
or  ancient  Roman.  But  not  only  will  the  student  of  Shake- 
speare discover  this  prominence  in  the  works  of  the  great  poet, 


Continental  Travel.  2 1  7 

but  the  close  searcher  into  the  byways  of  Italian  literature  will 
discover  that  not  only  are  the  plots  taken  from  Italy,  but  in 
several  cases  the  very  words  are  translations,  more  or  less  faith- 
ful, from  Italian  authors  of  mediocre  fame. 

"  There  is  no  doubt  that  the  English  poet  knew  Italy  well,  and 
with  an  observant,  intimate  knowledge  of  not  only  the  outward 
aspects  of  the  places  and  people,  but  also  an  intuitive  knowledge 
which  enabled  him  to  penetrate,  as  it  were,  into  their  hearts 
and  minds,  and  show  them  forth  on  the  stage  verily  'in  their 
habit  as  they  lived.'  It  is  George  Augustus  Sala,  himself  the 
descendant  of  a  Roman  family  of  ancient  lineage,  who  point- 
edly refers  to  this  quality  of  Shakespeare's  knowledge  of  Italy. 
In  his  '  Life  and  Adventures,'  published  a  few  months  ago, 
Mr.  Sala  writes:  'Wandering  from  Milan  to  Mantua,  and  from 
Padua  to  Verona  and  Vicenza,  there  grew  up  in  me  day  after 
day  a  stronger  and  stronger  impression  —  an  impression  which 
has  become  an  unalterable  conviction  —  that  Shakespeare  knew 
every  rood  of  ground  and  every  building  in  the  cities  in  which 
he  had  laid  the  scenes  of  the  "  Merchant  of  Venice,"  "  The  Two 
Gentlemen  of  Verona,"  of  "  Romeo  and  Juliet,"  and  of  "  The 
Taming  of  the  Shrew."  Few  tourists  who  have  visited  North- 
ern Italy  have  escaped  being  pestered  by  ciceroni,  who  have 
offered  to  show  them  the  tomb  of  Juliet  at  Verona,  the  shop  of 
the  apothecary  at  Mantua,  and  the  Palazzo  del  Moro  (the  resi- 
dence of  Othello)  on  the  Grand  Canal  at  Venice.  But  it  was 
the  constant  study  of  ostensibly  petty  details  in  Shakespeare's 
Italian  plays  that  led  me  to  the  full  and  fast  belief  that  he  was 
familiar,  from  actual  experience  and  observation,  with  the 
Northern  Italy  of  his  time.' 

"  To  one  who  resides  constantly  in  Italy,  and  is  gifted  with 
observation,  the  truth  of  this  is  most  convincing  and  evident. 
A  short  time  ago  I  visited  the  cities  which  are  the  chief  scenes 
of  his  more  prominent  Italian  plays,  —  Venice,  Verona,  Padua, 
Mantua.  It  was  simply  surprising  to  note  how  marvellously  the 
view  of  the  place,  carefully  studied,  threw  light  on  the  play  for 
which  it  furnished  the  scene.  Shakespeare  was  evidently  of  the 
opinion  of  Proteus,  in  'The  Two  Gentlemen  of  Verona,'  'that 
home-keeping  youths  have  ever  homely  wits,'  and  undoubtedly  he 


2i8  Bacon  vs.  Shakspere. 

did  extend  his  travel  beyond  the  space  which  lies  between  Lon- 
don and  Stratford-upon-Avon.  I  have  not  to  account  for  the 
time  in  which  this  continental  tour  was  accomplished,  —  that  is 
the  task  of  the  biographer;  but  the  intimate  knowledge  of  Ital- 
ian towns,  manners,  and  customs  cannot  intelligently  and  satis- 
factorily be  accounted  for  otherwise." 

Professor  Elze  gives  us,  also,  some  curious  informa- 
tion regarding  "  Shake-speare's  "  knowledge  of  Italian 
art,  —  knowledge  that  could  have  been  derived,  it 
would  seem,  only  from  personal  inspection  on  the 
spot.  For  instance,  in  the  '  Winter's  Tale,'  "  Shake- 
speare "  tells  us  that  the  statue  of  Hermione  was  the 
work  of  Giulio  Romano ;  he  dwells  upon  the  merits 
of  it,  and  of  Romano's  artistic  qualities  as  a  sculptor, 
with  discriminating  and  enthusiastic  praise. 

"  There  is,  perhaps,  no  description  of  statuary  extant  so  ad- 
mirable for  its  truth  and  beauty."  —  Green' 's  Shakespeare  and 
the  Emblem  Writers,  p.  108. 

But  who  ever  heard,  until  recently,  that  Romano 
was  a  sculptor?  Certainly  not  the  Shakespearean 
critics,  for  they  have  almost  universally  assumed  that 
this  great  master  in  the  art  of  painting,  Raphael's 
favorite  pupil  and  successor,  simply  colored  in  this 
case  the  work  of  another  artist.  Such  coloring  was 
then,  indeed,  quite  in  vogue.  Shakspere's  bust  at 
Stratford  was  treated  in  this  manner,  and  continued 
so  —  with  red  lips,  brown  eyes,  and  auburn  hair  — 
until  Mr.  Malone,  himself  a  learned  critic,  employed 
a  common  house-painter  to  cover  it  with  a  coat  of 
white  paint.  Other  critics,  such  as  the  editor  of  the 
'Saturday  Review'   and  Mr.   Andrew  Lang,  charac- 


Statue  of  Hermione.  2 1 9 

terize  this  reference  to  Romano  as  one  of  "  Shake- 
speare's "  blunders.1 

It  happens,  however,  that  Vasari,  who  published 
in  1550  a  work  on  Italian  art,  and  who  was  a  con- 
temporary and  personal  acquaintance  of  Romano, 
states  distinctly  that  Romano  was  not  only  a  painter, 
but  an  architect  and  sculptor  also.  The  statement 
appears  in  a  Latin  epitaph  given  in  the  book.  Vasari 
revised  and  enlarged  his  work  for  a  second  edition 
in  1568,  but,  curiously  enough,  omitted  the  epitaph. 
The  first  edition  (which  was,  of  course,  in  Italian) 
was  never  translated  into  a  foreign  tongue.  It  was 
the  second  edition  only  that  became  known,  through 
translations,  outside  of  Italy.  "  We  now  stand,"  says 
Professor  Elze,  "before  this  dilemma":  Either  the 
author  of  the  plays  had  read,  when  he  wrote  the 
'  Winter's  Tale,'  a  copy  of  Vasari  in  the  first  edition 
(one  that  had  long  been  supplanted  by  another,  and 
that  has  not  been  translated  to  this  day),  and  found 
what  nobody  else  found  for  nearly  three  hundred 
years  afterwards,  or  he  had  been  in  Mantua  and  seen 
Romano's  works. 

It  is  hardly  necessary  to  add  that  every  effort  to 
find  the  slightest  hint  of  foreign  travel  in  the  life  of 
Shakspere,  though  made  with  great  persistence,  has 
thus  far  signally  failed. 

n.  Bacon's  paramount  aspiration  was  to  possess 
and  impart  wisdom.  He  was  indefatigable  in  his 
search  for  it,  analyzing  motives,  and  turning  the  light 

1  "The  egregious  blunder  of  calling  him  a  sculptor."  —  Saturday 
Review. 

For  Mr.  Lang's  assumption  to  the  same  effect,  see  '  Harper's 
Monthly,'  April,  1S94,  art.  '  Winter's  Tale.' 


220  Baco7i  vs.  Shakspcrc. 

of  his  genius  upon  the  most  hidden  springs  of  con- 
duct. Nothing  was  too  remote  or  recondite  for  his 
use.  It  was  inevitable,  then,  that  his  mind  should 
fall  easily  and  naturally  into  those  channels  of  thought 
which  the  "  wit  of  one  and  the  wisdom  of  many  "  have 
worn  deep  in  human  experience.  The  Promus  fairly 
sparkles  with  proverbs.  Nearly  every  known  language 
appears  to  have  been  ransacked  for  them.  From  the 
Promus  they  were  poured  copiously  into  the  plays. 
Mrs.  Pott  finds  nearly  two  thousand  instances  in  which 
they  beautify  and  enrich  these  wonderful  works. 

"In  Bacon's  works  we  find  a  multitude  of  moral  sayings  and 
maxims  of  experience  from  which  the  most  striking  mottoes 
might  be  drawn  for  every  play  of  Shakespeare,  —  aye,  for  every 
one  of  his  principal  characters,  .  .  .  testifying  to  a  remarkable 
harmony  in  their  mutual  comprehension  of  human  nature."  — 
Gervinus . 

"  As  a  student  of  human  nature  Bacon  is  hardly  yet  appre- 
ciated ;  his  beneficent  spirit  and  rich  imagination  lend  sweetness 
and  beauty  to  the  homeliest  practical  wisdom. 

"  As  well  as  he  thought  he  understood  [physical]  nature,  he 
understood  human  nature  far  better. 

"  Not  the  abstract  qualities  and  powers  of  the  human  mind, 
but  the  combination  of  these  into  concrete  character,  interested 
Bacon.  He  regarded  the  machinery  in  motion  ;  the  human 
being  as  he  thinks,  feels,  and  moves  ;  men  in  their  relations  with 
men."  1  —  E.  P.  Whipple. 

"  The  study  of  mankind  occupied  the  largest  part  of  his 
time."  —  Prof.  Mintds  Manual  of  English  Prose  Composition, 

P-  243- 

"  The  original  ten  essays  contain  almost  nothing  but  maxims 
of  prudence."  —  Ibid. 

"  The  main  study  of  his  life  was  how  to  '  work '  men."  — 
Ibid.,  p.  254. 

"He  was  more  eminently  the  philosopher  of  human  than  of 
general  nature."  —  Hallam. 

1  How  exactly  this  characterization  fits  "  Shake-speare  "  also  I 


Queen  Elizabeth. 


Court  Etiquette.  223 

0.  Bacon's  whole  life  was  passed  in  the  atmosphere 
of  the  Court.  At  the  age  of  ten  he  was  patted  on 
the  head  by  Queen  Elizabeth,  and  called  her  "  young 
lord  keeper."  When  sixteen  he  went  to  Paris  in  the 
suite  of  the  British  ambassador,  and  lived  three  years 
in  that  gay  capital  and  its  vicinity,  studying  not  only 
the  arts  of  diplomacy,  but  all  the  penetralia  of  Court 
life.  On  his  return  he  was  freely  admitted  to  the 
presence  of  royalty,  was  the  friend  of  princes,  and, 
filling  the  highest  offices  in  the  gift  of  the  king,  was 
elevated  to  the  peerage.  It  is  not  surprising,  there- 
fore, that  the  plays,  almost  without  exception,  have 
their  movement  in  the  highest  circles  of  society. 
The  common  people  are  kept  in  the  background, 
and  are  referred  to  in  terms,  often  bordering  on  con- 
tempt, that  show  the  author  to  have  been  a  man  of 
rank.  It  is  certain  that  he  was  familiar  with  Court 
etiquette,  even  to  the  nicest  details. 

"  Shakespeare  despised  the  million,  and  Bacon  feared,  with 
Phocion,  the  applause  of  the  multitude."  —  Gervinus. 

"  He  [Shakespeare]  was  a  constitutional  aristocrat."  — 
Appleton  Morgan. 

"  Men  of  birth  and  quality  will  leave  the  practice  [of  duelling] 
when  it  comes  so  low  as  barbers,  surgeons,  butchers,  and  such 
base  mechanical  persons."  —  Bacon. 

"  The  ignorant  and  rude  multitude."  — Ibid. 

"  The  rude  multitude ;  the  base  vulgar."  —  Shakespeare. 

p.  Bacon  was  continually  hiding  his  personality 
under  disguises.  One  of  the  first  acts  of  his  public 
career  was  to  invent  a  cipher  for  letter-writing.  He 
even  invented  a  cipher  within  a  cipher,  so  that  if  the 
first  should  by  any  chance  be  disclosed,  the  other, 
imbedded    in    it,   would    escape  detection.      At  one 


224  Bacon  vs.  Shakspere. 

time  he  carried  on  a  fictitious  correspondence,  in- 
tended for  the  eye  of  the  queen,  between  his  brother 
Anthony  and  the  Earl  of  Essex,  composing  the  let- 
ters on  both  sides,  and  referring  to  himself  in  the 
third  person.  He  published  one  of  his  philosophical 
works  under  a  pseudonym,  and  another  as  though  it 
were  the  wisdom  of  the  ancients  stored  in  fables. 
In  Sonnet  LXXVI.  we  find  the  following :  — 

"  Why  write  I  still  all  one,  ever  the  same, 
And  keep  invention  in  a  noted  weed, 
That  every  word  doth  almost  tell  my  name, 

Showing  their  birth  and  whence  they  did  proceed  ?  " 

Here  is  a  plain  statement  that  the  author  of  this 
sonnet  was  writing  under  a  disguise. 

The  same  remarkable  admission  appears  in  Bacon's 
prayer : — 

"  The  state  and  bread  of  the  poor  and  oppressed  have  been 
precious  in  mine  eyes ;  I  have  hated  all  cruelty  and  hardness  of 
heart ;  I  have,  though  in  a  despised  weed,  sought  the  good  of 
all  men." 

The  word  weed  signifies  garment;  particularly,  as 
both  Bacon  and  "  Shake-speare  "  use  it,  one  that  dis- 
guises the  wearer.1   It  will  be  noted  that  this  confession 

*  "  Luc.     But  in  what  habit  will  you  go  along  ? 
Jul.     Not  like  a  woman.  .  .  . 

Gentle  Lucetta,  fit  me  with  such  weeds 
As  may  beseem  some  well-reputed  page." 

Two  Gentlemen  of  Verona,  II.  7. 

"  This  fellow  .  .  .  clad  himself  like  a  hermit,  and  in  that  weed 
wandered  about  the  country,  until  he  was  discovered  and  taken."  — 
Bacon's  History  of  Henry  VII. 


Philosophy.  225 

reveals  at  once  Bacon's  views  of  the  drama  (already- 
quoted)  as  a  means  of  promoting  public  virtue,  those 
of  the  people  around  him  (who  despised  it),  and  his 
incognito. 

q.  Early  in  life,  Bacon  determined  to  make  all 
knowledge  his  province.  He  became  fired  with  this 
ambition  at  college,  when  he  discovered  that  the 
authority  of  Aristotle,  then  supreme  over  the  minds 
of  men,  was  based  on  erroneous  postulates.  Accord- 
ingly he  resolved,  single-handed,  to  demolish  the 
whole  structure  of  philosophy  as  it  then  existed,  and 
at  least  to  indicate  the  methods  by  which  it  should 
be  rebuilt.  To  accomplish  this,  he  knew  he  must 
compass  all  the  knowledge  of  his  time,  as  the  great 
Stagirite  had  done  before  him.  How  well  and  faith- 
fully he  fulfilled  his  task,  let  the  gratitude  and  venera- 
tion of  mankind  make  answer.  Among  the  names 
of  the  five  most  illustrious  men  of  all  the  world, 
Bacon's  has  a  place,  and  that  place  at  or  near  the 
head. 

Of  the  various  arts  and  sciences  into  which  he 
pushed  his  investigations,  we  may  specify  the  fol- 
lowing :  — 

Philosophy.  —  Bacon  has  been  called  the  father  of 
inductive  philosophy,  because  he,  more  than  any 
other,  taught  the  natural  method  of  searching  for 
truth.  Before  his  time,  men  had  conceived  certain 
principles  to  be  true,  and  from  them  had  reasoned 
down  to  facts.  The  consequence  was  that  facts  be- 
came more  or  less  warped  to  fit  theories,  and  the 
discovery  of  new  facts  out  of  harmony  with  the 
theories  a  matter  of  regret  and  even  of  condemna- 

15 


226  Bacon  vs.  Skakspere. 

tion.  Under  this  system,  obviously,  the  world  could 
make  but  slow  progress. 

Bacon  started  at  the  other  end.  The  cast  of  his 
mind  was  distinctively  synthetical.  His  choice  of  the 
inductive  method  for  his  investigations,  a  process 
from  the  particular  to  the  general  and  from  the  gen- 
eral to  the  universal,  shows  the  direction  of  his  intel- 
lectual fibre.  In  this  he  simply  obeyed  a  law  of  his 
being,  as  a  carpenter  drives  his  plane  with  the  grain 
of  the  wood.1  He  had  no  knowledge  of  mathematics, 
a  science  almost  purely  analytic.2  He  discarded  the 
syllogism,  because  it  opens  with  a  broad  assumption 
and  reasons  downward.  On  the  other  hand,  he  had 
an  ability,  as  we  have  already  stated,  to  detect  analo- 
gies and  to  combine,  never  surpassed,  perhaps  never 
equalled,  among  the  children  of  men.  In  a  word,  his 
mind  was  phenomenally  comprehensive,  able  to  pro- 
ject a  vast  temple  of  science  in  which  every  depart- 
ment should  have  its  appropriate  space,  but  not  to 
excavate  to  solid  rock  on  which  to  lay  the  founda- 
tions and  erect  the  structure.  Even  at  this  distance 
of  time  we  are  amazed  at  the  mass  of  materials 
gathered  together  by  this  intellectual  giant  from  all 
quarters,  and  lying  about  in  great  promiscuous  heaps 
on  the  ground  where  he  toiled. 

Bacon's  eminence  as  a  philosopher  is  one  of  the 
interesting    paradoxes    of  our   time.      On   one   point 

1  "  With  a  synthetic  power  rarely  equalled,  Bacon  was  an  indiffer- 
ent analyst ;  his  care  was  not  to  part  and  prove,  but  to  announce  and 
harmonize."  —  NichoVs  Francis  Bacon,  Part  II.  p.  194. 

2  He  "was  not  only  entirely  unacquainted  with  geometry  and 
algebra,  but  evidently  insensible  even  of  their  value  or  their  use."  — 
Craii's  English  Literature  and  Language,  II.  143. 


Philosophy.  227 

only  are  all  agreed,  viz.,  that  he  is  a  resplendent  orb 
in  the  light  of  which,  across  an  interval  of  three  cen- 
turies, every  man  still  casts  a  shadow.  His  brightness 
prevents  a  clear  definition  of  his  disk.  No  two  critics 
agree  as  to  the  nature  or  cause  of  the  profound  im- 
pression he  has  made  on  mankind.  Their  comments 
remind  us  of  the  inscription  on  a  monument  in 
Athens,  "  To  the  unknown  God."  1 

Bacon  himself  was  full  of  contradictions.  He  often 
violated  his  own  precepts.  He  declared  he  was  only 
"  ringing  a  bell "  for  others,  and  yet  he  took  no 
notice  of  those  who,  as  it  were,  obeyed  his  summons. 
He  sneered  at  Copernicus,  and  at  the  theory  of  the 
solar  system  with  which  that  illustrious  name  is  linked 
forever.  He  betrayed  no  sympathy  with  Galileo. 
He  turned  a  deaf  ear  to  Harvey,  the  discoverer  of 
the  circulation  of  the  blood ;  to  Gilbert,  who  first 
proclaimed  the  earth  a  magnet;  to  Napier,  the  inven- 
tor of  logarithms ;  and  to  Kepler,  whose  formula  of 
planetary  laws  imparts  dignity  to  human  nature  itself. 
All  these,  with  the  exception  of  Copernicus,  were  his 
contemporaries,  illustrating  his  own  favorite  methods 
and  adding  glory  before  his  face  to  his  own  glorious 
age.  Any  estimate  of  Bacon  into  which  these  facts 
do  not  fit  is  utterly  worthless. 

Various  notable  attempts  have  been  made  to  ex- 
plain this  anomaly.  According  to  Baron  Liebig, 
Bacon  was  an  impostor ;  this  is  the  Explanation 
Brutal.     According  to  Spedding,  he  had  a  wonder- 

1  "  There  is  something  about  him  not  fully  understood  or  discerned, 
which,  in  spite  of  all  curtailment  of  his  claims  in  regard  to  one 
special  kind  of  eminence  or  another,  still  leaves  the  sense  of  his 
eminence  as  strong  as  ever." — Craik's  English  Literature  and  Lan- 
guage, I.  613. 


228  Bacon  vs.  Shakspere. 

ful  talent  for  detecting  resemblances,  but  none  at  all 
for  distinguishing  differences  ;  this  is  the  Explanation 
Nonsensical.  Dr.  Draper  in  his  '  Science  and  Re- 
ligion '  comes  nearer  the  truth  ;  he  holds  that  Bacon's 
entire  system  of  philosophy  is  "  fanciful." 

The  only  rational  and  consistent  view  is  this: 
Bacon  was,  first,  a  poet ;  secondly,  a  philosopher. 
Over  and  above  his  other  faculties  towered  the  cre- 
ative, —  that  which  gave  eloquence  to  his  tongue, 
splendor  to  his  style,  and  an  exhaustless  illumination 
to  his  whole  being.  If  he  sometimes  failed  to  dis- 
cern a  truth  close  at  hand  in  the  practical  affairs 
of  life,  he  was  like  the  angels  before  the  Throne, 
hiding  their  eyes  under  their  wings. 

"  A  similar  combination  of  different  mental  powers  was  at 
work  in  them ;  as  Shakespeare  was  often  philosophical  in  his 
profoundness,  Bacon  was  not  seldom  surprised  into  the  imagina- 
tion of  the  poet."  —  Gervinus. 

"If  we  look  carefully  into  the  matter,  it  is  not  on  the  pre- 
scribed method  of  Bacon  that  his  fame  was  built.  It  was  the 
power  of  divination  in  the  man  which  made  him  great  and  in- 
fluential. .  .  .  He  was  very  near  discovering  the  law  of  the 
correlation  of  forces."1  —  Ingleby^s  Essays,  p.  182. 

"  His  services  lay  not  so  much  in  what  he  did  himself,  as  in 
the  grand  impulse  he  gave  to  others."  —  Prof.  Mintd's  English 
Prose  Composition,  p.  239. 

"  No  man  would  go  to  Bacon's  works  to  learn  any  particular 
science  or  art,  any  more  than  he  would  go  to  a  twelve-inch 
globe  in  order  to  find  his  way  from  Kennington  turnpike  to 

1  History  is  full  of  instances  of  this  same  poetic  divination.  Ten 
years  before  Darwin's  '  Origin  of  Species '  appeared,  Emerson 
wrote :  — 

"  And  striving  to  be  man,  the  worm 
Mounts  through  all  the  spires  of  form." 


History.  229 

Clapham  Common.  The  art  which  Bacon  taught  was  the  art 
of  inventing  arts."  —  Macaulafs  Essay  on  Bacon. 

"  The  glance  with  which  he  surveyed  the  intellectual  universe 
resembled  that  which  the  archangel  from  the  golden  threshold 
of  heaven  darted  down  into  the  new  creation."  —  Ibid. 

"  II  se  saisit  tellement  de  l'imagination,  qu'il  force  la  raison 
a  s'incliner,  et  il  les  eblouit  autant  qu'il  les  e'claire."  —  M.  Re- 
musat :  Bacon,  sa  vie,  son  temps,  sa  philosophic,  et  son  influ- 
ence.    Paris:  1857. 

"  Truly  it  may  be  said  both  of  Bacon  and  of  Shakespeare, 
that  equally  they  never  argue;  they  decree."  —  O'Connor's 
Hamlet's  Note-Book,  p.  60. 

"  He  was  a  seer,  a  poet,  rather  than  a  natural  philosopher." 
—  R.  M.  Theobald. 

"  Some  of  Bacon's  suggested  experiments  on  light  might 
well  be  supposed  to  have  been  borrowed  from  Newton ;  and  the 
results  at  which  he  arrived  in  the  investigation  of  heat,  he  sets 
forth  in  language  not  greatly  differing  from  that  which  in 
modern  times  describes  heat  as  a  mode  of  motion."  —  Baron 
Liebig,  Macmitlan's  Mag.,  1863. 

"  Bacon  was  the  prophet  of  things  that  Newton  revealed."  — 
Horace  Walpole. 

"  The  change  is  great  when  in  fifty  years  we  pass  from  the 
poetical  science  of  Bacon  to  the  mathematical  and  precise 
science  of  Newton." —  Church's  Life  of  Bacon,  p.  181. 

"  The  Novum  Organum  is  a  string  of  aphorisms,  a  collec- 
tion, as  it  were,  of  scientific  decrees,  as  of  an  oracle  who  fore- 
sees the  future  and  reveals  the  truth.  .  .  .  It  is  intuition, 
not  reasoning."  —  Taine's  History  of  English  Literature, 
I.  154. 

History.  —  Historical  literature  had  a  special  charm 
for  Bacon.  His  history  of  the  reign  of  Henry  VII. 
is  an  English  classic  ;  his  portraiture  of  Julius  Caesar, 
an  epitome  of  one  of  the  world's  most  interesting 
and  important  epochs. 

Shakespeare's  mind  ran  in  the  same  channels. 
Nearly  half  the  plays   are  historical,  and  they  deal 


230  Bacon  vs.  Shakspere. 

with  those  periods  to  which  Bacon  gave  particular 
attention,  the  English  Henries  and  the  career  of 
Rome. 

"  '  Where  have  you  learned  the  history  of  England  ? '  it  was 
asked  of  the  greatest  statesman  of  the  last  century.  Lord 
Chatham  replied,  'In  the  plays  of  Shakespeare.'"  —  Dean 
Stanley. 

"  The  marvellous  accuracy,  the  real,  substantial  learning  of 
the  three  Roman  plays  of  Shakespeare,  present  the  most  com- 
plete evidence  to  our  minds  that  they  were  the  result  of  a  pro- 
found study  of  the  whole  range  of  Roman  history."  —  Knight. 

"  Where,  even  in  Plutarch's  pages,  are  the  aristocratic  repub- 
lican tone  and  the  tough  muscularity  of  mind,  which  character- 
ized the  Romans,  so  embodied  as  in  Shakespeare's  Roman 
plays  ?  Where,  even  in  Homer's  song,  the  subtle  wisdom  of 
the  crafty  Ulysses,  the  sullen  selfishness  and  conscious  martial 
might  of  broad  Achilles,  the  blundering  courage  of  thick-headed 
Ajax,  or  the  mingled  gallantry  and  foppery  of  Paris,  so  vividly 
portrayed  as  in  '  Troilus  and  Cressida'?"  —  Richard  Grant 
White. 

"Delicate  and  subtle  distinctions  are  made  between  the 
manners  of  different  epochs  of  Roman  history.  For  instance, 
the  language,  turn  of  thought,  and  local  coloring  in  '  Coriolanus,' 
'Antony,'  and  'Julius  Caesar'  are  exquisitely  and  profoundly 
Roman ;  yet  the  reader  is  conscious  that  the  Romans  in 
'  Coriolanus  '  are  as  different  from  the  Romans  of  the  other  two 
plays  as  was  the  Roman  people  at  the  two  different  epochs  in 
question.  .  .  .  We  have  here  the  very  essence  and  soul  of  clas- 
sicism, and  we  have,  too,  what  the  ancients  have  not  given  us, 
the  household  and  private  physiognomy  of  their  times."  — 
Shaw's  English  Literature,  p.  121. 

Law.  —  Bacon  began  the  study  of  law  at  nineteen, 
several  years  before  the  appearance  of  the  first  of  the 
Shakespeare  plays.  His  mastery  of  the  subject  was 
prompt  and  thorough.  At  fifty  he  was  the  leading 
jurist  of  the  age. 


Law.  231 

The  use  of  legal  terms  in  the  plays,  always  in  their 
exact  significance,  and  sometimes  showing  profound 
insight  into  the  principles  on  which  they  rest,  has 
long  excited  the  wonder  of  the  world.  On  this  point 
we  have  already  given  the  opinion  of  Chief  Justice 
Campbell ;  we  will  add  the  testimony  of  Richard 
Grant  White,  a  witness  also  on  the  other  side,  and 
now  speaking  as  it  were  under  cross-examination,  as 
follows :  — 

"  No  dramatist  of  the  time,  not  even  Beaumont,  who  was  a 
younger  son  of  a  judge  of  the  Common  Pleas,  and  who,  after 
studying  in  the  inns  of  court,  abandoned  law  for  the  drama, 
used  legal  phrases  with  Shakespeare's  readiness  and  exactness. 
And  the  significance  of  this  fact  is  heightened  by  another,  that 
it  is  only  to  the  language  of  the  law  that  he  exhibits  this  inclina- 
tion. The  phrases  peculiar  to  other  occupations  serve  him  on 
rare  occasions,  generally  when  something  in  the  scene  suggests 
them ;  but  legal  phrases  flow  from  his  pen  as  part  of  his  vocab- 
ulary and  parcel  of  his  thought.  .  .  .  And  besides,  Shakespeare 
uses  his  law  just  as  freely  in  his  early  plays,  written  in  his  first 
London  years,  as  in  those  produced  at  a  later  period.  Just  as 
exactly,  too;  for  the  correctness  and  propriety  with  which  these 
terms  are  introduced  have  compelled  the  admiration  of  a  chief 
justice  and  a  lord  chancellor." 

The  conclusion  is  well-nigh  irresistible  that  a 
trained   lawyer  was  the   author  of  the  plays.1     The 

1  "  The  notion  that  he  was  an  attorney's  clerk  is  blown  to  pieces." 
—  Richard  Grant  White. 

"  The  worst  of  it  is,  for  the  theory  of  his  having  been  an  attorney's 
clerk,  that  it  will  not  account  for  his  insight  into  law;  his  knowledge 
is  not  office  sweepings,  but  ripe  fruits,  mature,  as  though  he  had 
spent  his  life  in  their  growth."  —  Gerald  Massey. 

"  It  is  demonstrated  that  he  [Shakespeare]  was  no  attorney's 
clerk,  as  Lord  Campbell  believed,  but  a  ripe,  learned,  and  profound 
lawyer,  so  saturated  with  precedents  that  at  once  in  his  highest  and 


232  Bacon  vs.  Shakspere. 

only  possible  escape  from  it  is  through  Portia's 
unprecedented  rulings  in  the  trial  scene  in  '  The 
Merchant  of  Venice ; '  as  though  a  beautiful  damsel, 
sitting  as  judge  on  the  bench,  and  in  love  with  one 
of  the  parties  interested  in  the  suit,  were  expected 
to  follow  legal  precedents ! 

It  is  not  necessary,  however,  to  poise  this  argu- 
ment on  a  jest.  Thanks  to  Mr.  John  T.  Doyle,  a 
complete  explanation  of  these  seemingly  anomalous 
proceedings  is  easily  given.  That  is  to  say,  the 
trial  was  in  exact  accordance  with  the  rules  of  pro- 
cedure that  formerly  obtained  in  the  courts  of  Spain, 
and,  it  may  fairly  be  presumed,  also  in  those  of 
Venice. 

In  1852-53  Mr.  Doyle  resided  in  Nicaragua,  once 
a  Spanish  colony,  and  still  under  the  sway  of  Spanish 
customs,  and  there,  as  agent  of  a  trading  company, 
became  involved  in  considerable  litigation.  The 
account  which  he  gives  of  the  course  pursued  in  one 
of  his  causes,  and  substantially  in  them  all,  is  ex- 
tremely interesting,  particularly  in  view  of  the  light 
thrown  by  it  on  the  case  Shy  lock  vs.  Antonio. 

First,  the  judge  ascertained  the  facts  in  the  usual 
way,  by  questioning  the  parties  to  the  suit,  and  ex- 
sweetest  flights  he  colors  everything  with  legal  dyes."  —  Appleton 
Morgan. 

"  Genius  would  not  here  guide  without  technical  lore.  .  .  .  Are 
the  devotees  of  Shakespeare  resolved  to  make  him  a  miracle?'"'  — 
Prof.  Francis  IV.  Newman. 

A  writer  in  '  Baconiana  '  (London,  November,  1S93)  shows  with  ad- 
mirable clearness  and  force  that  out  of  two  hundred  and  fifty  points 
of  law  treated  in  the  plays,  two  hundred  and  one  of  them  are  stated 
with  more  or  less  fulness  in  Bacon's  legal  tracts,  published  by 
Spedding,  and  easily  accessible  to  any  student. 


Shy  lock  vs.  Antonio.  233 

amining  the  witnesses ;  then,  taking  the  case  under 
advisement,  he  continued  it  to  another  day.  In  due 
time  the  parties  were  again  called  together  and  a 
written  statement  of  the  matters  in  controversy  was 
submitted  to  them  by  the  judge,  who,  with  their  con- 
currence, immediately  appointed  a  certain  person,  of 
high  reputation  for  capacity  and  legal  attainments,  to 
act  as  referee.  This  person,  who  happened  to  live  in 
a  distant  city,  submitted  his  opinion  in  writing,  as  the 
final  decision  of  the  court.  Subsequently  a  gratifi- 
cation in  his  behalf  was  demanded  of  the  successful 
suitor.  Mr.  Doyle's  comments  on  the  case  are  so 
clever  that  we  present  them  entire :  — 

"  With  this  experience,  I  read  the  case  of  Shylock  over 
again,  and  understood  it  better.  It  was  plain  that  the  sort  of 
procedure  Shakespeare  had  in  view,  and  attributed  to  the  Vene- 
tian court,  was  exactly  that  of  my  recent  experience.  The  trial 
scene  in  the  '  Merchant  of  Venice '  opens  on  the  day  appointed 
for  final  judgment ;  the  facts  had  been  ascertained  at  a  previous 
session,  and  Bellario  had  been  selected,  as  the  jurist,  to  deter- 
mine the  law  applicable  to  them.  The  case  had  been  submitted 
to  him  in  writing,  and  the  court  was  awaiting  his  decision.  The 
defendant,  when  the  case  is  called,  answers,  as  is  done  daily  in 
our  own  courts,  '  Ready,  so  please  your  Grace.'  '  Shylock,  the 
plaintiff,  is  not  present.  In  an  English,  or  any  common-law 
court,  his  absence  would  have  resulted  in  a  nonsuit,  but  not  so 
here;  he  is  sent  for,  just  as  my  adversary  was,  and  comes. 
After  an  ineffectual  attempt  to  move  him  to  mercy,  the  Duke 
intimates  an  adjournment,  unless  Bellario  comes.  And  it  is 
then  announced  that  a  messenger  from  him  is  in  attendance ; 
his  letter  is  read,  and  Portia  is  introduced.  Bellario's  letter 
excuses  his  non-attendance  on  a  plea  of  illness,  and  proposes 
her,  under  the  name  of  Balthasar,  as  a  substitute.  '  I  acquainted 
him  [he  writes]  with  the  cause  in  controversy  between  the  Jew 
and  Antonio,  the  merchant;    we  turned  o'er  manv  books  to- 


234  Bacon  vs.  Shakspcre. 

o-ether:  he  is  furnished  with  my  opinion,  which,  bettered  with 
his  own  learning,  the  greatness  whereof  I  cannot  enough  com- 
mend, comes  with  him  at  my  importunity  to  fill  up  your  Grace's 
request  in  my  stead.  ...  I  leave  him  to  your  acceptance,  whose 
trial  shall  better  publish  his  commendation.'  The  Duke,  of 
course,  had  the  right,  so  far  as  concerned  himself,  to  accept  the 
substitution  of  Balthasar  for  Bellario;  but  Shylock,  I  take  it, 
would  have  had  his  right  to  challenge  the  substitute,  and  per- 
haps it  is  to  avoid  this,  by  disarming  his  suspicions,  that  all 
Portia's  utterances  in  the  case,  until  she  has  secured  his  express 
consent  to  her  acting,  are  favorable  to  him.     Thus,  — 

'  Of  a  strange  nature  is  the  suit  you  follow, 
Yet  in  such  rule  that  the  Venetian  law 
Cannot  impugn  you  as  you  do  proceed  ; ' 

and  again,  after  her  splendid  plea  for  mercy,  — 

'  I  have  spoken  thus  much, 
To  mitigate  the  justice  of  thy  plea, 
Which,  if  thou  follow,  this  strict  Court  of  Venice 
Must  needs  give  sentence  'gainst  the  merchant  here.' 

"  Shylock  would  have  been  mad  to  object  to  a  judge  whose 
intimations  were  so  clearly  in  his  favor.  He  first  pronounces 
her  '  A  Daniel  come  to  judgment !  yea,  a  Daniel ! '  This  does 
not,  however,  amount  to  an  express  acceptance  of  her  as  a  sub- 
stitute ;  it  is  but  an  expression  of  high  respect,  consistent  with 
a  refusal  to  consent  to  the  proposed  substitution.  She  carries 
the  deception  still  farther,  pronounces  the  bond  forfeit,  and 
that  — 

'  Lawfully,  by  this  the  Jew  may  claim 
A  pound  of  flesh,  to  be  by  him  cut  off 
Nearest  the  merchant's  heart,' 

and  again  pleads  for  mercy- 

"  The  poor  Jew,  completely  entrapped,  then  '  charges  her  by 
the  law  to  proceed  to  judgment.'  Antonio  does  the  same,  and, 
both  parties  having  thus  in  open  court  accepted  her  as  such, 
she  is  fairly  installed  as  the  judex  substitutus  for  Bellario,  and 


Shy  lock  vs.  Antonio.  235 

almost  immediately  afterwards  suggests  the  quibble  over  the  drop 
of  blood  and  the  exact  pound  of  flesh  on  which  Antonio  escapes. 
"  To  complete  the  parallel  to  my  Nicaraguan  experience, 
above  recounted,  we  find,  after  the  trial  is  over,  and  the  poor, 
discomfited  Jew  has  retired  from  the  court,  the  Duke  says  to  the 
defendant,  whose  life  has  been  saved  by  Portia's  subtlety, — 

'  Antonio,  gratify  this  gentleman, 
For,  in  my  mind,  you  are  much  bound  to  him.' 

That  is,  give  him  a  'gratification,'  or  honorarium  j  and  Bas- 
sanio  offers  her  the  three  thousand  ducats  which  were  the 
condition  of  the  bond."  1 

Mr.  Doyle  also  finds,  in  a  Mexican  case,  a  prece- 
dent for  the  action  of  the  Venetian  court  in  fining 
Shylock.     He  then  adds  :  — 

"  It  seems  to  me  that  Shakespeare  was  acquainted  (however 
he  acquired  the  knowledge)  with  the  modes  of  procedure  in 
tribunals  administering  the  law  of  Spain,  as  well  as  with  those 
of  his  own  country ;  if  like  practice  did  not  obtain  in  Venice,  or 
if  he  knew  nothing  of  Venetian  law,  there  was  no  great  improb- 
ability in  assuming  it  to  resemble  that  of  Spain,  considering 
that  both  were  inherited  from  a  common  source,  and  that  the 
Spanish  monarchs  had  so  long  exercised  dominion  in  Italy." 

Bacon's  residence  in  France  and  in  Southern  Eu- 
rope for  several  years  sufficiently  accounts  for  the 
special  knowledge  shown  by  "  Shake-speare  "  in  the 
conduct  of  this  case. 

Medicine.  —  Upon  the  theory  and  practice  of  medi- 
cine, Bacon  lavished  at  times  all  his  powers.  The 
study  seems  to  have  had  a  special  fascination  for 
him.  He  was  puddering  in  physic,  he  says,  all  his 
life.     He  even   kept  an  apothecary  among  his  per- 

1  Shakespeariana,  10.  57. 


2  7,6  Bacon  vs.  Shakspere. 

sonal    retainers,   seldom    retiring    to    bed    without  a 
dose. 

Physicians  tell  us  that  the  writer  of  the  plays  was 
a  medical  expert.  Dr.  Bucknill  has  written  a  book 
of  three  hundred  pages,  and  Dr.  Chesney  one  of  two 
hundred,  to  prove  this.  We  know  that  the  names  of 
Galen  and  Paracelsus  roll  from  the  tongues  of  the 
dramatis  persons  like  household  words.  Bacon's 
mother  was  afflicted  in  the  latter  part  of  her  life  with 
insanity.  The  portrayal  of  that  dreaded  disease  in 
'  Hamlet '  and  '  King  Lear  '  is  to  this  day  a  psycho- 
logical marvel.1 

"  We  confess,  almost  with  shame,  that,  although  nearly  two 
centuries  and  a  half  have  passed  since  Shakespeare  wrote  '  King 
Lear,'  we  have  very  little  to  add  to  his  method  of  treating  the 
insane,  as  there  pointed  out."  —  Dr,  Brigham. 

"  Diseases  of  the  nervous  system  seem  to  have  been  a 
favorite  study,  especially  insanity."  —  B.  Rush  Field's  Medical 
Thoughts  of  Shakespeare,  p.  13,  2d  ed. 

"  That  abnormal  states  of  mind  were  the  favorite  study  of 
Shakespeare  would  be  evident  from  the  mere  numbers  of  char- 

1  It  has  been  conjectured  that  Shakespeare  derived  his  knowledge 
of  medical  science  from  his  son-in-law,  Mr.  Hall,  who  was  a  physician. 
This  is  negatived  by  two  considerations,  viz. :  1.  Hall  married  Susanna 
Shakespeare  in  1607,  twenty  years  after  the  plays  began  to  appear, 
and  long  after  those  were  written  in  which  this  specialty  is  most  dis- 
played. 2.  His  professional  attainments  were  of  too  low  a  character 
to  sustain  such  an  inference.  Fortunately,  we  have  his  memorandum 
book,  in  which  he  noted  down  his  most  important  cases,  and  the 
methods  of  treatment  he  applied  to  them.  Conspicuous  among  his 
remedies  are  powdered  human  skull  and  human  fat,  tonics  of  earth 
worms  and  snails,  solution  of  goose  excrements,  frog-spawn  water, 
and  swallows'  nests,  —  straw,  sticks,  dung,  and  all. 

This  was  in  the  days  when  country  practitioners  advised  people, 
on  the  ground  of  health,  to  wash  their  faces  but  once  a  week,  and  to 
drv  them  onlv  on  scarlet  cloth. 


Natural  History.  237 

acters  to  which  he  has  attributed  them.  On  no  other  subject 
has  he  written  so  much :  on  no  other  has  he  written  with 
such  mighty  power."  —  BucknilVs  Psychology  of  Shakespeare, 
p.  vii. 

Natural  History.  —  No  department  of  science  was 
more  thoroughly  explored  by  Bacon  than  natural 
history.  If  he  had  anticipated  a  general  deluge  of 
ignorance,  he  could  not  have  gathered  into  an  ark  a 
more  complete  menagerie  than  the  one  we  find  in 
his  '  Sylva  Sylvarum  '  and  other  works.  Nearly  every 
living  species,  the  name  and  habits  of  which  had 
been  given  in  books,  is  represented  there. 

In  one  other  author  alone,  not  professedly  tech- 
nical, do  we  find  equally  copious  references  to  ani- 
mals and  plants.  That  author  is  "  Shake-speare." 
The  books  that  have  been  written  to  show  his  knowl- 
edge on  this  subject  are  very  numerous.  We  have 
one  by  Harting,  on  the  Ornithology  of  "  Shake- 
speare ;  "  another  by  Phipson,  on  his  Animal  Lore ; 
three  by  Ellacombe,  Beisly,  and  Grindon,  on  his 
Plant  Lore ;  and  an  elaborate  treatise  by  Patterson, 
on  the  insects  mentioned  in  the  plays. 

The  resemblance  between  the  two  goes  further;  it 
exists  not  only  in  the  multiplicity  of  these  references, 
but  in  the  character  of  them  also. 

Bacon  was  born  in  London ;  he  passed  the  most  of 
his  days  in  the  city,  or  in  its  immediate  suburbs.  We 
have  no  reason  to  believe  that  he  was  especially  fond 
of  country  life,  or  that  he  studied  nature  personally 
in  the  fields  and  woods.  His  love  of  garden  plants, 
however,  as  already  shown,  was  deep  and  tender;  he 
wanted  some  of  them  in  bloom  about  him  all  the 
year  round.     He  likened  their  perfume  to  the  war- 


238  Bacon  vs.  Shakspere. 

bling  of  birds.  He  once  accepted  an  invitation  to 
make  a  social  visit,  with  the  remark  that  he  would  be 
delighted  to  pluck  violets  in  his  friend's  garden.  In 
the  science  of  horticulture,  therefore,  no  one  could 
be  more  thoroughly  at  home  than  Francis  Bacon, 
or  possess  a  knowledge  much  more  minute  and 
accurate. 

On  the  other  hand,  for  what  he  wrote  on  the  great 
world  of  nature  beyond  the  precincts  of  his  garden, 
on  trees  and  shrubs,  on  birds  and  fish  and  undomes- 
ticated  animals  generally,  he  was  obliged  to  go  to 
the  shelves  of  his  library.  He  went  to  Aristotle's 
'  Problems,'  to  Pliny's  '  Natural  History,'  to  Sandys' 
'  Travels,'  to  Scaliger's  '  De  Subtilitate,'  to  Porta's 
'Magic,'  and  to  several  others.  He  viewed  each  of 
these  works  as  a  collection,  and  accordingly  he 
called  his  own,  in  which  they  were  all  to  some  de- 
gree incorporated,  '  Sylva  Sylvarum,  or  Collection  of 
Collections.'  Rawley  tells  us  that  he  himself  foraged 
through  all  this  literature  for  the  facts  which  Bacon 
recorded. 

The  dependence  on  books  was  so  absolute  that, 
though  no  mention  is  made  by  Bacon  of  Sandys  or 
of  Sandys'  travels,  we  know  almost  exactly  what 
countries  the  latter  visited,  and  even  the  order  in 
which  he  visited  them,  from  what  is  contained  in  the 
'  Sylva  Sylvarum.' 

Under  these  circumstances  one  result  was  inevi- 
table. Allowing  for  the  full  exercise  of  Bacon's  sci- 
entific intuition,  we  must  still  expect  to  find,  as  Baron 
Liebig  has  found,  numerous  errors  in  the  text.  The 
stream  never  rises  higher  than  the  source,  and  the 


Natural  History.  239 

source  in  this  case  was  fact  and  fiction  inextricably 
mixed. 

It  is  startling  to  find  the  same  line  of  demarcation 
between  the  knowledge  of  horticulture  and  the  knowl- 
edge of  the  great  world  of  physical  nature  outside  of 
horticulture,  and  the  same  indifference  to  charges  of 
plagiarism,  in  "  Shake-speare  "  precisely  as  in  Bacon. 
What  "  Shake-speare  "  has  written  about  garden- 
plants  is  accurate  to  the  minutest  details.  He  is 
here  evidently  on  his  own  ground,  giving  the  results 
of  his  own  observations,  and  spreading  over  them  the 
glow  of  his  personal  feelings. 

In  the  domain  of  animated  nature  at  large,  how- 
ever, we  encounter  a  different  state  of  things.  Over 
every  kind  of  wild  animal,  including  birds  and  insects 
mentioned  in  the  plays,  with  one  curious  exception, 
our  literary  Jupiter  nods ;  but  he  nods  so  gracefully 
as  to  deceive  even  the  very  elect  of  the  critics. 
Thanks  to  an  intelligent  writer  in  the  '  Quarterly,' 
we  now  know  to  what  books  he  went  for  his  facts, 
and  how  and  why  he  blundered. 

"  He  borrows  from  Gower  and  Chaucer  and  Spenser ;  from 
Drayton  and  Du  Bartas  and  Lyly  and  William  Browne  ;  from 
Pliny,  Ovid,  Virgil,  and  the  Bible ;  borrows,  in  fact,  every- 
where he  can,  but  with  a  symmetry  that  makes  his  natural  his- 
tory harmonious  as  a  whole,  and  a  judgment  that  keeps  it 
always  moderate  and  possible." — Quarterly  Review,  April, 
1894. 

Take  the  description,  for  instance,  of  the  ideal 
horse  in  '  Venus  and  Adonis ;  '  it  is  borrowed,  almost 
word  for  word,  from  Du  Bartas.  Here  are  all  of 
"  Shake-speare's  "   phrases   as  they  occur  in  that  fa- 


240  Bacon  vs.  Shakspere. 

mous    description,    and,    in    brackets,    those    of   the 
original,  as  given  in  the  'Quarterly':  — 

••  Round  hoofed  [round  hoof] :  short  jointed  [short  pasterns]  ; 
broad  breasts  [broad  breast] ;  full  eye  [full  eye] ;  small  head 
[head  but  of  middle  size];  nostrils  wide  [nostril  wide];  high 
crest  [crested  neck,  bowed] ;  straight  legs  [hart-like  legs] ;  and 
passing  strong  [strong]  ;  thin  mane  [thin  mane];  thick  tail  [full 
tail] ;  broad  buttock  [fair,  fat  buttocks] ;  tender  hide  [smooth 
hide]." 

Now  take  an  illustration  among  the  birds.  The 
lark  seems  to  have  been  a  favorite  with  the  author 
of  the  plays.     The  allusions  are  as  follows :  — 

"  The  '  morning  lark '  (so  in  Lyly)  ;  the  '  mounting  lark ' 
(William  Browne)  ;  the  'merry  lark'  (Spenser)  ;  '  herald  of  the 
morning '  (Chaucer)  ;  '  shrill  lark  '  (Spenser)  ;  '  summer's  bird  ' 
(Spenser)  ;  the  'busy  day,  waked  by  the  lark'  ('the  busy  lark, 
waker  of  the  day,'  Chester)  ; 

'  Hark  !  hark  !  the  lark  at  heaven's  gate  sings, 
And  Phcebus  'gins  arise,' 
('  At  Heaven's  gate  she  claps  her  wings, 

The  morn  not  waking  till  she  sings.'  —  Lyly*)." 

The  writer  in  the  'Quarterly'  accepts  the  tradi- 
tional Shakspere,  but  he  cannot  avoid  expressing  a 
certain  disappointment  (in  which  he  has  our  entire 
sympathy)  as  follows :  — 

"  Shakespeare  was  curiously  unobservant  of  animated  Nature. 
.  .  .  He  seems  to  have  seen  very  little.  .  .  .  Stratford-on-Avon 
was,  in  his  day,  enmeshed  in  streams,  yet  he  has  not  a  single 
kingfisher.  Not  on  all  his  streams  or  pools  is  there  an  otter,  a 
water-rat,  a  fish  rising,  a  dragon-fly,  a  moor-hen,  or  a  heron. 
.  To  the  living  objects  about  him  he  seems  to  have  been 
obstinately  purblind  and  half-deaf.  His  boyhood  was  passed 
among  the  woods,  and  yet  in  all  the  woods  in  his  plays  there  is 
neither  woodpecker  nor  wood-pigeon :  we  never  hear  or  see  a 
squirrel  in  the  trees,  nor  a  night-jar  hawking  over  the  bracken." 


Natural  History.  241 

The  plain  answer  to  this  is,  of  course,  that  the 
author  of  the  plays  never  lived  in  Stratford ;  he  was 
not  a  countryman ;  he  never  roamed  through  the 
woods,  or  fished  in  the  streams.  On  the  contrary, 
he  passed  his  boyhood  in  a  city,  where  language  was 
free  from  patois ;  his  youth,  in  a  university,  from 
which  he  poured  the  classics  into  his  earliest  plays; 
and  his  manhood,  in  courts  of  law  and  royalty,  with 
the  manners,  customs,  and  learning  of  which  he  was 
so  thoroughly  familiar. 

We  are  now  prepared  to  understand  why  "  Shake- 
speare "  made  so  many  errors  in  his  descriptions  of 
animals,  —  he  looked  at  them,  contrary  to  Dryden's 
dictum,  through  the  "  spectacles  of  books."  For 
example :  — 

"  We  '11  follow  where  thou  lead'st, 
Like  stinging  bees  in  hottest  summer's  day, 
Led  by  their  master  to  the  flower'd  fields." 

Titus  Andronicus,  V.  I. 

"  The  passage  is  of  course  ridiculous,  but  it  is  taken  from 
Du  Bartas."  —  Quarterly. 

Again  :  — 

"Our  thighs  packed  with  wax,  our  mouths  with  honey, 
We  bring  it  to  the  hive." 

2  Henry  IV.,  IV.  4. 

"  Bees  do  not  carry  wax  on  their  thighs  but  in  their  tails ; 
and  honey,  not  in  their  mouths,  but  in  their  stomachs.  How- 
ever, the  line  is  borrowed  from  Lyly's  '  Euphues.' "  —  Quar- 
terly. 

Again,  — 


242  Bacon  vs.  Shakspere. 

"  The  old  bees  die,  the  young  possess  their  hive." 

"  Of  anything  else  in  the  world  this  might  be  true,  but  said  of 
the  bee  it  is  a  monumental  error,  the  most  compendious  mis- 
statement possible.  There  are  no  generations  of  bees ;  they 
are  all  the  offspring  of  the  same  mother;  and  they  possess  the 
hive  by  mutual  arrangement,  and  not  by  hereditary  succession  ; 
for  when  it  gets  too  full,  the  superfluous  tenth  goes  off  with  a 
queen  bee  to  the  colonies."  —  Quarterly. 

The  most  elaborate  description  of  a  bee-hive  and 
its  inmates  in  "  Shake-speare "  is  given  in  '  Henry 
V.,'  as  follows  :  — 

"  For  so  work  the  honey-bees, 
Creatures  that  by  a  rule  in  nature  teach 
The  act  of  order  to  a  peopled  kingdom  ; 
They  have  a  king  and  officers  of  sorts ; 
Where  some,  like  magistrates  correct  at  home, 
Others,  like  merchants,  venture  trade  abroad, 
Others,  like  soldiers,  armed  in  their  stings, 
Make  boot  upon  the  summer's  velvet  buds ; 
Which  pillage  they  with  merry  march  bring  home 
To  the  tent-royal  of  their  emperor ; 
Who,  busied  in  his  majesty,  surveys 
The  singing  masons  building  roofs  of  gold, 
The  civil  citizens  kneading  up  the  honey, 
The  poor  mechanic  porters  crowding  in 
Their  heavy  burdens  at  his  narrow  gate, 
The  sad-eyed  justice,  with  his  surly  hum, 
Delivering  o'er  to  the  executors  pale 
The  lazy  yawning  drone." —  I.  2. 

On  this  the  writer  in  the  '  Quarterly '  com- 
ments: — 

"  As  poetry,  it  is  a  most  beautiful  passage ;  as  a  description 
of  a  hive,  it  is  utter  nonsense,  with  an  error  of  fact  in  every  line, 
and  instinct  throughout  with  a  total  misconception  of  the  great 


Natural  History.  243 

bee-parable.  Obviously,  therefore,  there  could  have  been  no 
personal  observation.  How,  then,  did  the  poet  arrive  at  the 
beautiful  image?     From  the  '  Euphues '  of  Lyly." 

On  the  same  authority  it  appears  that  what 
"  Shake-speare"  says  of  the  cuckoo  comprises  "  two 
proverbs,  two  misstatements,  and  the  completest 
possible  misconception  of  the  cuckoo  idea  in  na- 
ture ;  "  and  of  the  weasel,  "  two  proverbs  and  two 
misstatements."  "  Shake-speare"  seems  to  have  been 
very  fond  of  the  dove,  and  to  have  some  accurate 
knowledge  of  it ;  but  it  is  the  domesticated  dove 
which  he  describes,  such  as  had  its  habitat  at  Gor- 
hambury  and  Twickenham  Park,  and  not  its  congener 
in  the  woods. 

To  all  this,  however,  we  find  one  significant  excep- 
tion, —  the  author  of  the  plays  describes  with  accu- 
racy and,  what  is  more  remarkable  still,  with  perfect 
sympathy,  the  animals  of  the  chase. 

"  With  the  boar,  the  hare,  and  the  deer  the  facts  are  re- 
versed. Whether  Shakespeare  ever  saw  a  boar-hunt  is  a  mat- 
ter for  conjecture,  but  he  gives  a  superb  description  of  the 
animal  and  its  chase  in  '  Venus  and  Adonis.'  ...  It  is  very 
noteworthy  as  an  illustration  of  the  poet's  treatment  of  a  real 
animal  in  which  he  felt  an  actual  personal  interest.  Take  again 
in  the  same  poem  the  exquisite  description  of  a  hunted  hare, 
and  note  the  force  and  beauty  which  the  lines  derive  from  his 
accuracy  and  sympathy.  He  had  observed  what  he  there  de- 
scribed, and  the  result  is  such  a  poem  as  to  make  other  poets 
despair. 

"Or  what  can  be  said  that  is  too  appreciative  of  Shake- 
speare's deer  ?  He  was  here  perfectly  at  home,  and  thoroughly 
familiar  from  personal  observation  with  the  haunts  and  habits 
of  the  animal  he  was  describing.  The  result  is  a  detailed  and 
most  beautifully  accurate  history  of  the  deer,  whether  stag,  hart, 


244  Bacon  vs.  Shakspere. 

or  hind,  buck,  or  doe.  Above  all,  it  is  marked,  as  in  the  case 
of  the  hare,  with  a  most  touching  sympathy  for  the  hunted 
beast."  —  Quarterly. 

Bacon  was  thoroughly  familiar  with  hunting  and 
hawking,  as,  indeed,  was  every  one  at  that  time  in  his 
station  of  life;  and  if  we  may  judge  from  his  tem- 
perament and  the  state  of  his  health,  sympathy  with 
the  hunted  animal  must  have  been  a  predominant 
feeling  with  him.  This  is  the  kind  of  exception  that 
proves  a  rule. 

Religion.  —  The  Bacon  family  was  Catholic  under 
Mary,  and  Protestant  under  Elizabeth ;  as  a  conse- 
quence, Francis  had  no  strong  predilections  in  favor 
of  either  sect.  In  religion  as  in  philosophy,  he  ab- 
horred sects,  and  sought  only  what  was  universal. 
The  sincerity  of  his  faith  in  an  overruling  Providence 
we  have  no  reason  to  doubt,  though  his  own  state- 
ment that  "  a  little  philosophy  inclineth  man's  mind 
to  atheism,  but  depth  in  philosophy  bringeth  men's 
minds  about  to  religion,"  may  have  been,  intention- 
ally or  unintentionally,  autobiographical,  indicating 
some  laxity  of  opinions  on  this  subject  in  the  early 
part  of  his  life.  The  anxieties  and  constant  admoni- 
tions of  his  mother,  culminating  in  the  dethronement 
of  her  reason,  as  well  as  the  subsequent  battles  of 
religious  controversialists  over  his  status,  would  seem 
to  justify  this  inference.1 

1  According  to  Evelyn  and  Aubrey,  Bacon  was  the  true  founder  of 
the  Royal  Society.  He  inspired  it  with  his  own  cosmopolitan  spirit 
against  the  religious  passions  of  the  age  so  effectually  that  when,  a 
hundred  years  afterwards,  the  Society  for  the  Promotion  of  Christian 
Knowledge  wished  simply  to  meet  in  its  rooms,  the  request  was  re- 
fused. .  .  .  Bacon's  name  has  been  found  in  a  list  of  rejected  candi- 


Religion.  245 

"  He  was  in  power  at  the  time  of  the  Synod  of  Dort,  and 
must  for  months  have  been  deafened  with  talk  about  election, 
reprobation,  and  final  perseverance.  Yet  we  do  not  remember 
a  line  in  his  works  from  which  it  can  be  inferred  that  he  was 
either  a  Calvinist  or  an  Arminian."  —  Macaulay. 

"  From  his  exhaustive  enumeration  of  the  branches  of  human 
knowledge  Bacon  excluded  theology,  and  theology  alone."  — 
Greene's  Short  History  of  England,  p.  596. 

Shakespeare's  religion  was  also  an  anomaly.  Sev- 
eral books  have  been  written  on  it,  but  they  might 
well  have  been  compressed  into  the  dimensions  of 
Horrebow's  famous  chapter  on  reptiles  in  Iceland. 
Some  infer,  from  his  toleration  amid  the  fierce  resent- 
ments of  his  time,  that  he  was  a  Catholic;  others, 
from  the  defiance  hurled  at  the  Pope  in  '  King  John,' 
and  from  the  panegyric  on  Cranmer  in  '  Henry  VIII.,' 
that  he  was  a  Protestant;  while  others  still,  finding 
no  consolations  from  belief  in  a  future  life  in  the 
plays,  proclaim  him  an  infidel.  Indeed,  pious  com- 
mentators always  approach  this  subject  walking  back- 
ward and  holding  a  mantle  before  them.  They  know 
instinctively  that  the  great  poet  was  also  a  great 
philosopher,  building  solidly  on  human  reason,  and 
from  the  summit  of  his  magnificent  structures  allow- 
ing not  even  a  vine  to  shoot  upward. 

"  In  his  great  tragedies  he  traces  the  workings  of  noble 
or  lovely  human  characters  on  to  the  point,  and  no  further, 
where  they  disappear  in  the  darkness  of  death  ;  and  ends  with  a 
look  back,  never  on  toward  anything  beyond."  —  E.  B.  West: 
Browning  as  a  Preacher. 

dates  for  admission  to  membership  in  the  Academy  of  Florence,  an 
institution  founded  for  the  cultivation  of  the  physical  sciences.  M. 
de  Remusat  assigns  the  rejection  to  theological  grounds. 


246  Bacon  vs.  Shakspere. 

"  No  church  can  claim  him."  —  Richard  Grant  White. 

"  Both  have  an  equal  hatred  of  sects  and  parties  :  Bacon,  of 
sophists  and  dogmatic  philosophers ;  Shakespeare,  of  Puritans 
and  zealots.  .  .  .  Just  as  Bacon  banished  religion  from  science, 
so  did  Shakespeare  from  art.  ...  In  both,  this  has  been 
equally  misconstrued,  Le  Maistre  proving  Bacon's  lack  of 
Christianity,  as  Birch  has  done  that  of  Shakespeare."  —  Ger- 
vimis. 

Poetry.  —  Bacon  defined  poetry  as  "feigned  his- 
tory ;  "  that  is  to  say,  history  not  according  to  actual 
occurrences  which  seldom  satisfy  the  moral  sense, 
but  of  a  higher  order,  so  written  as  to  exhibit  in  one 
picture  the  natural  and  in  the  end  inevitable  results 
of  a  given  line  of  conduct.  The  office  of  the  true 
poet  is  thus  to  bring  to  virtue  its  reward,  and  to  vice 
its  punishment  within  certain  time  limits,  and  on  the 
grandest  scale  to  which  his  genius  can  attain.  It  is 
to  grind  at  once  what  the  mills  of  God  grind  slowly. 
This  was  Bacon's  favorite  idea,  illustrated  also  in  his 
definition  of  Art  compared  with  Nature.  Art,  he  said, 
is  superior  to  Nature,  but  superior  to  it  only  while 
obedient  to  its  rules.  Architecture  may  be  "  frozen 
music,"  but  it  must  be  in  harmony  with  what  Bacon 
calls  the  "  nature  of  things,"  to  make  melody  in  our 
souls. 

It  is  impossible  to  conceive  of  compositions  more 
faithful  to  this  dramatic  ideal  than  the  plays  of 
"  Shake-speare."  The  very  anachronisms  in  them 
emphasize  the  distinction  between  poetry  and  his- 
tory ;  and  the  plays  always  meet  the  ends  of  justice, 
for  they  are  always  true  to  the  fundamental  principles 
of  our  nature. 


Miisic.  247 

"  Nature  is  made  better  by  no  mean, 
But  Nature  makes  that  mean ;  so,  over  that  art, 
Which,  you  say,  adds  to  Nature,  is  an  art 
That  Nature  makes.     You  see,  sweet  maid,  we  marry 
A  gentler  scion  to  the  wildest  stock  ; 
And  make  conceive  a  bark  of  baser  kind 
By  bud  of  nobler  race.     This  is  an  art 
Which  does  mend  nature." 

Winter's  Tale,  IV.  3. 

"  His  contemporary,  Bacon,  gave  to  poetry  this  great  voca- 
tion; as  the  world  of  the  senses  is  of  lower  value  than  the 
human  soul,  so  poetry  must  grant  to  men  what  history  denies ; 
it  must  satisfy  the  mind  .  .  .  with  a  more  perfect  order  and  a 
juster  relation  of  things  than  are  to  be  found  there.  Shake- 
speare appears  to  have  held  the  same  views."  —  Gervinus1  Com., 
II.  549. 

The  plays  are  "  the  most  consummate  style  of  the  art  that 
mends  nature."  —  Holmes'  Authorship  of  Shakespeare,  p.  200. 

"In  one  short  but  beautiful  paragraph  concerning  poetry, 
Bacon  has  exhausted  everything  that  philosophy  and  good 
sense  have  yet  had  to  offer  on  what  has  been  since  called  the 
Beau  Ideal."  —  Dugald  Stewart. 

Music.  —  Both  authors  took  great  delight  in  music. 
Bacon  devoted  a  long  chapter  of  his  '  Natural  His- 
tory '  to  the  consideration  of  sounds  and  the  laws  of 
melody.  In  the  plays  we  find  nothing  sweeter  than 
the  strains  that  "  creep  in  our  ears "  as  we  read 
them. 

"  Lord  Bacon  has  given  a  great  variety  of  experiments, 
touching  music,  that  show  him  to  have  been  not  barely  a  phi- 
losopher, an  inquirer  into  the  phenomena  of  sound,  but  a  master 
of  the  science  of  harmony,  and  very  intimately  acquainted  with 
the  precepts  of  musical  composition."  —  Sir  John  Hawkins. 

"  Shakespeare  seems  to  have  been  proficient  in  the  art."  — 
Richard  Grant  White. 


248  Bacon  vs.  SJiakspere. 

"  He  [Shakespeare]  seems  also  to  have  possessed,  in  an  un- 
usual degree,  the  power  of  judging  and  understanding  the  theory 
of  music,  —  that  upon  which  the  performance  and  execution  of 
music  depends.  In  the  'Two  Gentlemen  of  Verona'  (I.  1), 
where  the  heroine  of  the  play  is  conversing  with  her  maid, 
there  is  a  passage  which  enters  so  fully  into  the  manner  of  how 
a  song  should  be  sung,  that  it  seems  to  have  been  inserted  in- 
tentionally to  exhibit  the  young  poet's  knowledge  in  this  branch 
of  art.  And  Burney  draws  attention  to  the  fact  that  the  critic 
who,  in  the  scene  referred  to,  is  teaching  Lucetta  Julia's  song, 
makes  use  of  no  expressions  but  such  as  were  employed  by 
the  English,  as  termini  technici  in  the  profession  of  music."  — 
Ulrici. 

One  of  the  points  upon  which  Bacon  expended 
much  thought  was  the  harmonic  relations  of  the  tones 
composing  the  modern  diatonic  scale.  The  interval 
of  the  perfect  fourth,  which  comprises  two  major 
seconds  and  a  minor  second,  he  carefully  analyzed, 
reaching  a  conclusion  which  has  been  frequently 
cited  in  treatises  on  the  subject.  Concerning  this 
interval  he  writes,  that  "  after  every  three  whole 
notes  [tones]  nature  requireth  for  all  harmonical  use 
one  half  note  [tone]  to  be  interposed."  Thus,  for 
instance,  from  C  to  F,  which  comprises  a  perfect 
fourth,  we  have  three  whole  tones,  C,  D,  and  E,  fol- 
lowed by  a  semitone,  F.  The  augmentation  of  this 
interval,  by  sharpening  the  F,  so  as  to  give  an  inter- 
val of  three  full  tones,  was  not  permissible  in  Bacon's 
day,  and  he  sought  to  base  the  prohibition  on  a  nat- 
ural law. 

Again  Bacon  writes :  "  For  discords,  the  second 
and  seventh  are  of  all  others  the  most  odious  in  har- 
mony to  the  sense  ;  whereof  the  one  is  next  above  the 
unison,  the  other  next  under  the  diapason,  which  may 


Music.  249 

shew  that  harmony  requireth  a  competent  distance  of 
notes."  Here  is  evidence  of  his  perfect  familiarity 
with  a  technical  question ;  is  it  possible  that  Shake- 
speare also  possessed  the  same  abstruse  knowledge? 
We  quote  from  '  King  Lear ' :  — 

"Oh,  these  eclipses  portend  these  divisions!  —  fa,  sol,  la, 
mi."  — I.  2. 

"  In  Shakespeare's  time,  and  until  a  comparatively  recent  date, 
the  syllables  for  solmization,  instead  of  do,  re,  mi,  fa,  sol,  la,  si, 
were  fa,  sol,  la,  fa,  sol,  la,  mi ;  "  so  that  '  fa,  sol,  la,  mi '  covered 
the  interval  of  an  augmented  fourth,  "ending  upon  the  seventh 
or  leading  note  of  the  scale,  which,  unless  followed  by  the  tonic, 
or  used  for  some  very  special  effect,  is  a  most  distracting  figure 
based  upon  the  most  poignant  of  discords."  —  Richard  Grant 
White. 

"  Shakespeare  shows  by  the  context  that  he  was  well  ac- 
quainted with  the  property  of  these  syllables  in  solmization, 
which  imply  a  series  of  sounds  so  unnatural  that  ancient  musi- 
cians prohibited  their  use.  The  monkish  writers  on  music  say, 
mi  contra  fa  est  diabolus.  The  interval,  fa  mi,  including  a  tri- 
tonus  or  sharp  4th,  consisting  of  three  tones  without  the  inter- 
vention of  a  semitone  (expressed  in  the  modern  scale  by  the 
letters  F  G  A  B),  would  form  a  musical  phrase  extremely  dis- 
agreeable to  the  ear.  Edmund,  speaking  of  eclipses  as  portents 
and  prodigies,  compares  the  dislocation  of  events,  the  times 
being  out  of  joint,  to  the  unnatural  and  offensive  sounds,  fa,  sol, 
la,  mi."  —  Dr.  Burney. 

Oratory.  —  Bacon  was  a  natural  orator.  Ben  Jon- 
son  says  of  him  :  — 

"  There  happened  in  my  time  one  noble  speaker  who  was 
full  of  gravity  in  his  speaking.  .  .  .  His  hearers  could  not 
cough,  or  look  aside  from  him  without  loss.  He  commanded 
where  he  spoke,  and  had  his  judges  angry  and  pleased  at  his 
will.  No  man  had  their  affections  more  in  his  power.  The 
fear  of  every  man  who  heard  him  was  lest  he  should  make  an 
end." 


250  Bacon  vs.  Shakspere. 

Another  contemporary  pronounced  him  "  the  elo- 
quentest  man  that  was  born  in  this  island." 

Turning  to  the  plays,  we  find  there  the  most  won- 
derful speech  that  ever  passed,  or  was  supposed  to 
pass,  human  lips.  In  power  of  sarcasm,  in  pathos, 
in  sublimity  of  utterance,  and,  above  all,  in  rhetorical 
subtlety,  Mark  Antony's  oration  over  the  body  of 
Caesar  has  no  equal  in  forensic  literature. 

il  Every  line  of  this  speech  deserves  an  eulogium;  .  .  .  nei- 
ther Demosthenes,  nor  Cicero,  nor  their  glorious  rival,  the  im- 
mortal Chatham,  ever  made  a  better."  —  Sherlock. 

"  The  first  of  dramatists,  he  might  easily  have  been  the  first 
of  orators."  — Archbishop  Whately. 

Printing.  —  Bacon's  knowledge  of  the  printer's  art 
extended  to  the  minutest  details.  His  first  book  was 
published  when  he  was  twenty-four,  but  under  so 
heavy  a  title,  '  The  Greatest  Birth  of  Time,'  that  it 
sank  at  once  into  the  sea  of  oblivion.  The  mysteries 
of  the  craft,  however,  finally  became  very  familiar  to 
him.  In  the  'Novum  Organum '  he  announced  his 
intention  of  writing  a  treatise  on  the  subject,  going 
so  far  as  to  include  ink,  pens,  paper,  parchment,  and 
seals  in  his  prospectus  for  it. 

The  encyclopedic  "  Shake-speare  "  was  also  at 
home  in  the  composing  and  press  rooms.  "  He 
could  not  have  been  more  so,"  says  Dr.  Appleton 
Morgan,  "  if  he  had  passed  his  days  as  a  journeyman 
printer." 

"  A  small  type,  called  nonpareil,  was  introduced  in  English 
printing-houses  from  Holland  about  the  year  1560,  and  became 
admired  and  preferred  beyond  the  others  in  common  use.  It 
seems  to  have  become  a  favorite  with  Shakespeare,  who  calls 
many  of  his  lady  characters  '  nonpareils.'  "  —  Morgan. 


Art  of  Printing.  251 

"  What  printer  is  there  who  has  put  to  press  the  second  edi- 
tion of  a  book,  working  page  for  page  in  a  smaller  type  and 
shorter  measure,  but  will  recognize  the  typographer's  remi- 
niscences in  the  following  description  of  Leontes'  babe  by 
Pauline :  — 

*  Behold,  my  lords, 
Although  the  print  be  little,  the  whole  matter 
And  copy  of  the  father  :  .  .  . 
The  very  mould  and  frame  of  hand,  nail,  finger.' 

Winter's  Tale,  II.  3. 

Is  it  conceivable  that  a  sentence  of  four  lines,  containing  five 
distinct  typographical  words,  three  of  which  are  especially 
technical,  could  have  proceeded  from  the  brain  of  one  not  inti- 
mately acquainted  with  typography  ?  "  —  Blades'  Shakespeare 
and  Typography ,  p.  42. 

Astrology.  —  In  common  with  most  of  his  contem- 
poraries, Bacon  had  a  lingering  belief  in  astrology. 
So  had  the  author  of  the  plays.  The  planets  are 
"  good,"  "  favorable,"  "  lucky,"  or  "  ill-boding,"  "  an- 
gry," and  "  malignant,"  according  to  their  position  at 
the  moment  of  one's  birth. 

Navigation.  —  Among  the  subjects  investigated  by 
Bacon,  that  which  surprises  us  most  to  find  is,  per- 
haps, the  art  of  navigation.  He  went  into  it  so  thor- 
oughly, however,  that  in  his  '  History  of  the  Winds ' 
he  gives  us  the  details  of  the  rigging  of  a  ship,  as 
well  as  the  mode  of  sailing  her. 

We  are  still  more  astonished  —  or  should  be  if  we 
were  not  prepared  for  it  —  to  find  that  "Shake- 
speare "  had  the  same  unusual  knowledge.  He  not 
only  "  knows  the  ropes,"  but  he  knows  exactly  what 
to  do  on  shipboard  in  a  storm.  Even  the  dialect  of 
the  forecastle  is  familiar  to  him. 


2^2 


Bacon  vs.  Shakspere. 


"  Of  all  negative  facts  in  regard  to  his  [Shakespeare's]  life, 
none  perhaps  is  surer  than  that  he  never  was  at  sea."  — 
Richard  Grant  White. 

"  Shakespeare's  seamanship  during  the  tempest  in  the  first 
scene  [of  the  Tempest]  is  beyond  criticism.  No  order  of  the 
Boatswain  is  superfluous;  no  order  is  omitted  that  skill  can 
suggest  to  save  the  craft.  Turn  to  Dryden,  where,  amidst  a 
wild  and  incoherent  mass  of  nautical  nonsense,  orders  are  issued 
which,  if  obeyed,  would  drive  the  ship  straight  to  destruction." 
Furness*  Variorum^  IX. 

Heraldry.  —  In  the  '  De  Augmentis,'  Bacon  defines 
an  emblem  as  a  "  sensible  image,"  —  one  that  "  strikes 
the  memory  more  forcibly,  and  is  more  readily  im- 
pressed upon  it  than  an  object  of  the  intellect."  He 
includes  the  emblematic  art  in  the  list  of  those  sub- 
jects that  seemed  to  him  to  require  careful  investiga- 
tion. That  he  was  especially  fond  of  studies  of  this 
nature  is  evident  throughout  his  works.  Fables  with 
esoteric  meanings,  symbolical  pictures,  cipher  writ- 
ings, anything  occult  or  cabalistic,  strongly  appealed 
to  his  imagination.  The  frontispiece  of  the  '  Novum 
Organum'  is  a  ship  under  full  canvas,  passing  between 
the  pillars  of  Hercules  in  search  of  a  new  world  of 
science.  A  picture  of  the  winged  Pegasus  adorns 
another  of  his  books.  His  Essays  bear  the  title,  '  In- 
teriora  Rerum,'  or  the  Interior  of  Things.  Indeed,  a 
cloud  of  mystery  envelops  nearly  all  his  first  editions, 
to  the  despair  of  the  uninitiated,  from  that  day  to  this. 
He  named  his  whole  system  of  philosophy,  'The  Res- 
toration,' because  he  thought  there  had  once  been  an 
'  Age  of  Reason,'  the  records  of  which  are  now  lost, 
and  that  nothing  is  needed  for  its  recovery  but  a 
combined  effort  on  the  part  of  mankind  to  repossess 
Nature's  secrets.     In  his  view,  Plato   and  Aristotle 


DEyERJJLAMIOr, 

[  SummioAngliob 
[  ~  Cawcels^jiij  / 


Heraldry.  255 

are  among  the  lighter  objects  that  have  floated  down 
to  us  on  the  stream  of  Time,  —  the  heavier  and  more 
valuable  having  sunk  before  they  reached  us. 

Of  "  Shake-speare's  "  familiarity  with  the  works  of 
the  emblematists  we  have  abundant  proofs.  That  he 
had  read,  in  1593,  Whitney's  'Choice  of  Emblems,' 
an  English  publication  of  1586,  the  following  paral- 
lelism may  indicate :  — 

FROM  DEDICATION  OF  '  CHOICE      FROM  DEDICATION  OF  '  VENUS 
OF    EMBLEMS'   TO    EARL    OF  AND    ADONIS  '    TO    EARL   OF 

LEICESTER.  SOUTHAMPTON. 

"  Being    abashed    that   my  "  I   leave  it  to  your  honor- 

hability   can    not  afford   them  able  survey,  and  your  Honour 

such  as  are  fit  to  be  offered  up  to  your  heart's  content;  only  if 

to  so  honorable  a  survey ;  yet,  your  Honour  seem  but  pleased, 

if  it  shall  like  your  honor  to  I  account  myself  highly  praised, 

allow  of  any  of  them,  I  shall  and  vow  to  take  advantage  of 

think  my  pen  set  to  the  book  all  idle  hours  till  I  have  hon- 

in  happy  hour;  and  it  shall  en-  oured  you   with   some  graver 

courage  me  to  assay  some  mat-  labour." 
ter  of  more  moment,  as  soon 
as  leisure  will  furnish  my  de- 
sire in  that  behalf." 

In  the  triumph  scene  of  '  Pericles '  six  knights 
successively  cross  the  stage.  The  author  thus  de- 
scribes their  armorial  bearings :  — 

"  Sim.     Who  is  the  first  that  doth  prefer  himself  ? 
Thai.    A  knight  of  Sparta,  my  renowned  father ; 
And  the  device  he  bears  upon  his  shield 
Is  a  black  Ethiope  reaching  at  the  sun; 
The  word,  '  Lux  tua  vita  mini.' " 

This  motto,  says  Green,  in  his  '  Shakespeare  and 
the  Emblem  Writers  '  (to  whom  we  are  indebted  for 
much  curious  and  valuable  information  on  this  sub- 
ject), is  almost  identical  with  that  of  the  Blount  fam- 


256 


Bacon  vs.  Shakspere. 


ily,  several  members  of  which  are  introduced  to  us 
in  the  plays.  The  origin  of  the  device  itself —  "  a 
black  Ethiope  reaching  at  the  sun  "  —  is  unknown. 

"  Sim.     Who  is  the  second  that  presents  himself  ? 
Thai.   A  prince  of  Macedon,  my  royal  father; 
And  the  device  he  bears  upon  the  shield 
Is  an  arm'd  knight  that 's  conquer'd  by  a  lady  ; 
The  motto  thus,  in  Spanish,  '  Piu  por  dulzura  que  por 
fuerza. ' " 

Moderata  vis  impotent i  violent! a  potior. 


Freitag,  1579. 

The  motto  means  "  More  by  gentleness  than  by 
force,"  and,  though  here  given  in  Spanish,  has  been 
found  only  in  a  French  work,  "of  extreme  rarity" 
(as  Green  says),  Corrozet's  '  Hecatomgraphie,'  Paris, 
1540.     There  it  reads,  "plus  par  doulceur  que  par 


Heraldry. 


257 


force,"  and  is  illustrated  in  the  original  work  with  a 
wood-cut,  representing  the  well-known  fabled  contest 
between  the  Wind  and  the  Sun  over  a  traveller's  cloak. 

We  know  that  this  fable  subsequently  became  very 
popular  on  the  Continent,  for  we  find  it  again  in 
Freitag's  Latin  work,  '  Mythologia  Ethica.' 

Freitag's  work  in  Latin  came  from  the  press  in 
Antwerp  in  1579,  the  year  that  terminated  Bacon's 
sojourn  in  France. 

"  Sim.     And  what 's  the  third  ? 
Thai.  The  third  of  Antioch 

And  his  device,  a  wreath  of  chivalry ; 
The  word,  'Me  pomps  provexit  apex.'" 

Me  pompae  prouexit  apex. 


Paraciin,  1562. 


The  laurel-wreath,  which  this  knight  wore  embla- 
zoned on  his  shield,  and  the  words,  meaning,  "  The 
crown  of  triumph  has  impelled  me  on,"  are  given, 
precisely   as   Shakespeare  has   represented  them,   in 

17 


25§ 


Bacon  vs.  Shakspere. 


Paradin's  '  Devises  Heroiques,'  published  in  French 
in  Antwerp  in  1562.  The  accompanying  cut  (p.  257) 
is  taken  from  that  work. 

"  Sim.     What  is  the  fourth  ? 
Thai.   A  burning  torch  that 's  turned  upside  down  ; 
The  word,  '  Quod  me  alit,  me  extinguit."  " 

For  this,  the  author  of  '  Pericles '  went  to  Syme- 
oni's  French  work,  '  Tetrastichi  Morali '  (1561),  or  to 
Whitney's  translation  of  it,  in  both  of  which  the  de- 
vice is  represented  as  follows  :  — 

S  I  GN  OR    DI    S. 

VALI  ER. 


Symeoni,  1561  {diminished  cofy). 

Symeoni's   explanation  of  the   device   is   in  these 
words :  — 


Heraldry. 


259 


"  In  the  battle  of  the  Swiss,  routed  near  Milan  by  King 
Francis,  M.  de  Saint-Valier  bore  a  standard  whereon  was 
painted  a  lighted  torch  with  the  head  downward,  on  which 
flowed  so  much  wax  as  would  extinguish  it,  with  this  motto, 
'  Qui  me  alit,  me  extinguit.'  It  is  the  nature  of  the  wax,  which 
is  the  cause  of  the  torch  burning  when  held  upright,  that  with 
the  head  downward  it  should  be  extinguished.  Thus  he  wished 
to  signify  that,  as  the  beauty  of  the  lady  whom  he  loved 
nourished  all  his  thoughts,  so  she  put  him  in  peril  of  his  life." 

"  Thai.    The  fifth,  a  hand  environed  with  clouds, 

Holding  out  gold  that 's  by  the  touchstone  tried, 
The  motto  thus,  '  Sic  spectanda  fides.'  " 


Crispin  de  Passe,  about  1595: 


We  find  this  device,  with  the  motto,  "  So  is  fidelity 
to  be  proved,"  in  Paradin,  who  thus  explains  it:  — 


260 


Bacon  vs.  Shakspere. 


''If  in  order  to  prove  fine  gold  or  other  metals,  we  bring 
them  to  the  touch,  without  trusting  to  their  glitter  or  their 
sound,  so  to  recognize  good  people  and  persons  of  virtue  it  is 
needful  to  observe  the  splendor  of  their  deeds,  not  words." 

Several  of  the  kings  of  France  adopted  this  device 
for  their  escutcheons. 

"  Sim.  And  what  's 

The  sixth  and  last,  the  which  the  knight  himself 
With  such  a  graceful  courtesy  deliver'd  ? 
Thai.    He  seems  to  be  a  stranger ;  but  his  present  is 
A  withered  branch,  that 's  only  green  at  top ; 
The  motto,  '  In  hac  spe  vivo.'  " 


Paradiu,  1562. 

Concerning  this,  Mr.  Douce  in  his  '  Illustrations  of 
Shakespeare  '  comments  as  follows  :  — 

"  The  sixth  device,  from  its  peculiar  reference  to  the  situa- 
tion of  Pericles,  may  perhaps  have  been  altered  from  one  in 
Paradin,  used   by  Diana  of   Poictiers.     It   is  a  green  branch 


Witchcraft.  261 

springing  from  a  tomb,  with  the  motto,  '  Sola  vivit  in   illo,1  — 
Alone  on  that  she  lives." 

Mr.  Green,  however,  thinks  that  "  Shake-speare  " 
invented  for  himself  the  sixth  knight's  device  and  its 
motto,  "  In  hac  spe  vivo."     He  adds  :  — 

"  The  step  from  applying  so  suitably  the  emblems  of  other 
writers  to  the  construction  of  new  ones  would  not  be  great ;  and 
from  what  he  has  actually  done  in  the  invention  of  emblems 
in  the  '  Merchant  of  Venice,'  he  would  experience  very  little 
trouble  in  contriving  any  emblem  he  needed  for  the  completion 
of  his  dramatic  plans.  The  Casket  Scene  [in  the  '  Merchant  of 
Venice 'J  and  the  Triumph  Scene  [in  'Pericles'],  then,  justify 
our  conclusion  that  the  correspondencies  between  Shake-speare 
and  the  Emblem  writers  which  preceded  him  are  very  direct 
and  complete.  It  is  to  be  accepted  as  a  fact,  that  he  was  ac- 
quainted with  their  works,  and  profited  so  much  from  them  as 
to  be  able,  whenever  the  occasion  demanded,  to  invent,  and 
most  fittingly  illustrate,  devices  of  his  own." — p.  185. 

It  is  evident  that  the  author  of  '  Pericles  '  had  made 
a  thorough  study  of  heraldry.  If  he  wrote  the  play 
previously  to  1586,  as  he  probably  did  (Dryden  says 
it  was  his  first),  he  acquired  his  knowledge  of  the 
subject  from  Latin,  French,  and  Italian  sources.  In 
either  event,  we  must  recognize  his  easy  familiarity 
with  the  literature  of  courts. 

Witchcraft.  —  Bacon  believed  in  witchcraft,  but  at 
the  same  time  deprecated  the  ease  with  which  judges 
and  juries  accepted  the  confessions  —  "  recent  con- 
fessions," as  he  called  them  —  of  the  poor  deluded 
creatures  on  trial  for  their  lives.  He  treated  the 
subject  in  the  'Advancement  of  Learning'  (1605), 
and  in  the  '  Sylva  Sylvarum.'  Among  the  most 
conspicuous  instances   of  the  kind  to  which  he   al- 


262  Bacon  vs.  Shakspere. 

hides  were  those  investigated  by  Dr.  Harsnet,  and 
made  public  by  him  in  a  book  entitled  '  Declaration 
of  Egregious  Popish  Impostures  '  in   1603. 

That  the  author  of  'King  Lear'  (1606)  went  to 
this  same  book  for  information  on  witchcraft  is  per- 
fectly well  known.  The  same  extraordinary  devils 
are  introduced  to  us  in  both  of  these  works  under 
the  following  names  :  — 

FROM   HARSNET'S    'DECLA- 
RATION.' FROM    'KING   LEAR.' 

Fliberdigibet  Flibbertigibbet 

Hoberdidance  Hobbididance 

Haberdicut  Obidicut 

Flateretto  Flateretto 

Smolkin  Smolkin 

Modu  Modo 

Maho  Mahu 

Passages  in  the  text  of '  King  Lear '  can  also  be 
traced  to  Harsnet,  particularly  Edgar's  references  to 
knives  and  halters  (articles  that  played  an  important 
part  in  the  proceedings  at  Denham),  and  the  charac- 
ter of  the  seven  devils  mentioned,  each  of  which  rep- 
resented a  deadly  sin  in  human  nature.  The  likeness 
extends  in  one  case  even  to  the  curling  of  the  hair. 
Indeed,  Mr.  Spalding,  in  his  '  Elizabethan  Demon- 
ology,'  is  enabled  from  this  source  to  correct  a  line 
in  the  drama,  ordinarily  rendered, 

"  Pur!  the  cat  is  gray"  (III.  6), 

by  showing  that  Purre  was  one  of  the  fiends  that 
figured  at  the  trial,  and  was  compared  to  a  cat,  as 
others  were  compared  to  hogs,  wolves,  dogs,  and 
lions. 


Freemasonry.  263 

"  Hog  in  sloth,  fox  in  stealth,  wolf  in  greediness,  dog  in 
madness,  lion  in  prey." — III.  4. 

"  A  comparison  of  the  passages  in  '  King  Lear,'  spoken  by 
Edgar  when  feigning  madness,  with  those  given  by  Harsnet, 
will  show  that  Shakespeare  has  accurately  given  the  contempo- 
rary belief  on  the  subject.  Mr.  Spalding  also  considers  that 
nearly  all  the  allusions  in  '  King  Lear'  refer  to  a  youth  known 
as  Richard  Mainey,  —  a  minute  account  of  whose  supposed  pos- 
session has  been  given  by  Harsnet."  —  Dyer's  Folk-Lore  in 
Shakespeare,  p.  56. 

Freemasonry.  —  The  corner-stone  of  the  Memorial 
Edifice  at  Stratford-upon-Avon  was  laid  in  1877  with 
full  masonic  ceremonial,  under  the  assumption,  based 
exclusively  on  the  plays,  that  the  dramatist  was 
a  member  of  the  order.  It  bears  the  following 
inscription  :  — 

THIS   STONE   WAS    LAID   ON 
April  2  yd,   1877, 

BY 
THE   RIGHT   HONOURABLE   AND    RIGHT   WORSHIPFUL 

LORD    LEIGH, 
P.  G.  Af.,   Warwickshire. 

Many  scholars,  who  have  brought  great  learning 
to  bear  upon  the  point,  both  in  England  and  in  Ger- 
many, Mr.  Wigston  especially,  are  assured  that  the 
founder  of  Freemasonry  was  Francis  Bacon.  The 
fraternity  may,  indeed,  be  said  to  rest  on  the  '  New 
Atlantis  '  as  its  foundation.  The  pillars  of  '  Solo- 
mon's House,'  as  Bacon  called  his  wonderful  imagi- 
nary structure,  are  Faith  and  LOVE. 


VI. 

DISILLUSION,   A   GAIN. 

HERE,  then,  is  our  "  Shake-speare."  A  man  born 
into  the  highest  culture  of  his  time,  the  consummate 
flower  of  a  long  line  of  distinguished  ancestry;  of 
transcendent  abilities,  dominated  by  a  genius  for 
hard  work ;  of  aims  in  life  at  once  the  boldest  and 
the  most  inspiring  which  the  heart  of  man  ever  con- 
ceived ;  in  originality  and  power  of  thought,  in  learn- 
ing, in  eloquence,  in  wit,  and  in  marvellous  insight 
into  character,  the  acknowledged  peer  of  the  greatest 
of  the  human  race.  "  Surely,"  says  Holmes,  "  we 
may  exclaim  with  Coleridge,  not  without  amazement 
still,  '  Merciful,  wonder-making  Heaven  !  what  a  man 
was  this  Shakespeare !  Myriad-minded,  indeed,  he 
was ! '  " 

Ours  is  an  age  of  disillusion.  Heroes  whose  names 
have  kindled  the  flame  of  devotion  to  duty  in  the 
hearts  of  millions  are  fading  into  myths.  The  ma- 
jestic form  of  William  Tell  is  found  to  be  but  a 
lengthened  shadow  thrown  across  the  page  of  history. 
Even  the  faithful  dog  Gelert,  over  whose  fate  so 
many  children  have  shed  tears,  has  become  as 
purely  symbolic  as  the  one  that  followed  Yudhish- 
thira  to  the  holy  mount,  and  was  thence,  for  his  vir- 


Disillusion,  a  Gain.  265 

tues,  translated  into  heaven.  Why  should  the  world 
longer  worship  at  the  shrine  of  a  man  of  whose  life  it 
knows,  almost  literally,  in  a  mass  of  disgusting  fiction, 
but  one  significant  fact,  viz.,  that  in  his  will,  dispos- 
ing of  a  large  property,  he  left  to  the  wife  of  his 
youth  and  the  mother  of  his  children  nothing  but  his 
"second-best  bed"  ! 

The  conclusion  of  the  whole  matter  may  be  stated 
thus : — 

The  Sonnets  will  lose  none  of  their  sweetness,  and 
the  Plays  none  of  their  magnificence,  by  a  change  in 
the  ascription  of  authorship.  The  world,  however, 
will  gain  much.  It  will  learn  that  effects  are  always 
commensurate  with  their  causes,  and  that  industry  is 
the  path  to  greatness. 


VII. 

BIOGRAPHY   OF   SHAKSPERE. 

SHAKSPERE    IN   FACT.  SURMISES,        LEGENDS,         AND 

MYTHS     STATED     AS     FACTS 

1564,   April   26.     Baptized   at        BY  the  biographers. 
Stratford-on-Avon. 

"Saxon  by  his  father  and 
Norman  by  his  mother;  .  .  . 
one  lobe  of  his  brain  seems 
to  have  been  Normanly  re- 
fined, and  the  other  Saxonly 
sagacious."  x  —  James  Russell 
Lowell, 

1  It  is  fortunate,  in  one  sense,  for  Shakspere  that  so  little  is  known 
of  his  life ;  the  critics  can  create  him  to  suit  themselves.  On  this 
point  one  of  the  latter  takes  us  into  his  confidence,  for  he  says 
(Wise's  '  Shakespeare,  his  Birthplace  and  its  Neighborhood  '),  "  it  is 
best  for  us  to  draw  our  own  ideal."  Mr.  Lowell  furnishes  us  with 
the  first  specimen  of  this  kind  of  carpentry. 

Shakspere's  lineage  baffles  research.  Of  his  grandparents  one 
only  is  known,  Robert  Arden,  not  of  the  gentry,  as  often  said,  but  a 
husbandman.  Richard  Shakspere,  of  Snitterfield,  also  a  husband- 
man, is  supposed  to  have  been  his  paternal  grandfather,  simply  be- 
cause two  young  men,  John  and  Henry  Shakspere,  were  living  at  the 
same  place  at  the  same  time  and  "  of  the  age  which  Richard's  sons 
might  be."  This  John  Shakspere  is  likewise  merely  supposed  to 
have  been  the  reputed  poet's  father.  In  the  mathematical  formulae 
of  Shakespeareans,  however,  two  suppositions  combined  equal  a  cer- 
tainty; whereas  it  is  evident  that  the  strength  of  a  conclusion  depend- 
ing upon  repeated  hypotheses  is  in  inverse  ratio  to  the  number  on 


Fact  and  Fiction.  267 

1571-78.  "  Received  the  tech- 
nical or  scholastic  part 
of  his  education  in  the 
Grammar  School  of  his 
native  town."  x  — Prof. 
Baynes,  Encyc.  Brit. 

"  "  "  Remained  at  school 
for  at  least  six  years."  2 
—  Ibid. 

"  "  "At  school  Shake- 
speare acquired  some 
knowledge  of  Latin  and 
of  Greek."  3  —  Richard 
Grant  White. 

"  "  "  Taken  by  his  father 
to  see  [dramatic]  per- 
formances at  Strat- 
ford." i—Prof.  Baynes. 

"  "  "At  Shottery  the 
poet     met    his    future 

which  it  rests.     The  maiden  names  of  the  two  grandmothers  are  irre- 
coverably lost. 

"  Shakspere  was  not  on  his  mother's  side  of  Norman  blood,  as 
some  have  concluded."  —  Richard  Grant  White. 

1  No  record.  First  mentioned  by  Rowe  in  1709  on  the  authority 
of  Thomas  Betterton,  the  actor,  who  visited  Stratford  in  the  latter 
part  of  the  seventeenth  century,  or  more  than  one  hundred  years 
after  Shakspere  had  attained  school  age. 

How  much  information  Betterton  gathered  up  may  be  inferred 
from  the  character  of  Rowe's  Biography,  which  was  largely  based 
upon  it,  and  in  which,  as  Malone  says,  there  are  eleven  statements  of 
fact,  two  of  them  true,  one  doubtful,  and  eight  false. 

2  No  record.     Stated  on  the  authority  of  Betterton. 

3  An  inference  only,  derived  from  the  plays.  No  evidence  exists 
that  he  attended  any  school  whatever.  All  the  traditions  respecting 
his  early  life,  his  domestic  surroundings  and  the  indications  de- 
rived from  his  handwriting  afford  presumptive  proof  that  he  was 
uneducated. 

*  Wholly  imaginary. 


268 


Bacon  vs.  Shakspere. 


1582,  Nov.  28. 
marry 
way. 


Licensed       to 
Anne    Hatha- 


bride,  in  all  the  charm 
of  her  sunny  girlhood  ; 
and  they  may  be  said 
to  have  grown  up  to- 
g  e  t  her."1  —  Prof . 
Baynes. 

1 582,  Dec.  "Married."2  — 
Richard  Grant  White. 


1583,  May  26.     His    daughter 

Susanna  baptized. 

1584,  Feb.  2.     Hamnet  and  Ju- 

dith, twins,  baptized. 


1585.  "The       substantial 

facts  in  the  story  [of  the 
deer-stealing]  are  that 
Shakspere  in  his  youth 
was  fond  of  woodland 
sports,  and  that  in  one 
of  his  hunting  adven- 
tures he  came  into  col- 


1  Wholly  imaginary  and  absurd.  She  was  nearly  eight  years  his 
senior,  and  "might  have  dandled  him  in  his  infancy,"  as  White  says, 
"  upon  her  knee." 

"The  marriage-bond  of  November,  1582,  includes  the  only  evi- 
dences respecting  Anne  Hathaway  during  her  maidenhood  that  have 
yet  been  discovered."  —  Halliwell-Phillipps'  Outlines,  Vol.  II.  p.  183. 

"  There  is  unhappily  no  tradition  indicating  the  birthplace  of 
Shakspere's  Anne  upon  which  the  least  reliance  can  be  placed."  — 
Ibid.,  p.  189. 

In  the  entry  on  the  Episcopal  register  for  a  marriage  license,  No- 
vember 27,  1582,  the  bride  is  called  Anne  Whateley  of  Temple  Graf- 
ton ;  in  the  bond  given  the  next  day  to  expedite  the  banns,  the  name 
appears  as  Anne  Hathwey  of  Stratford.  The  first  mention  of  the 
cottage  at  Shottery,  now  shown  to  visitors  as  her  maiden  residence, 
was  made  by  Samuel  Ireland  (father  of  the  celebrated  forger),  in  a 
book  entitled  "  Picturesque  Views  on  the  Warwickshire  Avon,"  in 
1795,  or  nearly  two  and  a  half  centuries  after  Anne  Hathwey's  birth. 

2  No  record.     A  pure  invention  as  to  date. 


Fact  and  Fiction.  269 

lision  with  Sir  Thomas 
Lucy's  keepers."1  — 
Prof.  Baynes. 

1585-87.  "With  'Venus  and 
Adonis '  written,  -  if 
nothing  else,  Shake- 
speare went  to  Lon- 
don."—  Richard  Grant 
White. 

1592.  "He     had    already 

1592.  In  London.     His  tested   his   faculty   for 

name  parodied  as  acting    by    occasional 

Shake-scene      in  essays  on   the   provin- 

Greene's   '  Groats-  cial    stage."  3  —  Prof. 

worth  of  Wit.'  Baynes. 


1  Reported  as  a  tradition  by  Betterton,  Capell,  and  Oldys,  about  a 
century  after  the  alleged  event.  Based  probably  on  the  first  scene  of 
'  The  Merry  Wives  of  Windsor,'  and  therefore  fictitious. 

2  Unsupported  by  testimony  of  any  kind  and  incredible.  Will  it 
be  believed  that,  in  inserting  the  qualifying  clause,  "  if  nothing  else," 
White  actually  had  in  mind  the  tragedy  of  '  Hamlet '  ? 

3  A  good  illustration  of  the  manner  in  which  Shakspere's  life  has 
been  written.  In  a  prior  part  of  the  same  article,  Professor  Baynes 
says  :  "  It  is  not  improbable  that  in  connection  with  some  of  the  com- 
panies [on  their  tours  into  the  country],  Shakespeare  may  have  tried 
his  hand  both  as  poet  and  actor  before  leaving  Stratford.  .  .  .  He 
may  have  been  pressed  by  the  actors  to  appear  in  some  secondary 
part  on  the  stage."  It  is  not  often  that  conjecture  and  fact  are 
brought  so  closely  together.  Usually,  it  has  taken  two  authors,  one 
succeeding  the  other,  to  get  a  fact  by  this  process  into  Shakspere's 
life. 

Mr.  Lowell  found  a  similar  artifice  in  Masson's  'Life  of  Milton  ' : 
"  What  he  puts  by  way  of  a  query  on  page  402  has  become  down- 
right certainty  nine  pages  farther  on."  —  Among  My  Books,  p.  267. 

A  curious  instance  of  this  easily  besetting  sin  in  Shakespearean 
commentators  is  found  in  the  Rev.  William  Harness'  '  Life  of  Shak- 
spere.'     In  1768  Capell  advanced  the  absurd  hypothesis  that  Shak- 


270  Bacon  vs.  Shakspere. 

1592.  "  Chettle  apologizes 
to  and  commends  Shak- 
spere, saying '  he  was  as 
sorry  as  if  the  original 
fault  had  been  his  own, 
to  have  offended  a  man 
so  courteous,  so  gifted, 
and  one  who,  by  his 
worth  and  his  ability, 
had  risen  in  the  esteem 
of  many  of  his  superi- 
ors in  rank  and  sta- 
tion.' .  .  .  Thus  Shak- 
spere, within  six  or 
seven  years  of  his  de- 
parture from  Stratford, 
a  fugitive  adventurer, 
had  won  admiration 
from  the  public,  re- 
spect from  his  superi- 
ors, etc."1 —  Richard 
Grant  White. 

1593.  "The  Earl  of  South- 
ampton .  .  .  had  a  spe- 
cial fondness  for  the 
drama;  and,  being  a 
constant  attendant  up- 

spere  was  afflicted  with  lameness,  basing  it  on  the  following  lines  in 
the  '  Sonnets '  :  — 

"  So  I,  made  lame  by  fortune's  dearest  spite." —  No.  XXXVII. 

"  Speak  of  my  lameness,  and  I  straight  will  halt."  —  No.  LXXXIX. 

Fifty-seven  years  afterward,  Mr.  Harness,  without  mentioning 
Capell,  proclaimed  the  lameness  as  a  fact,  whereupon  the  announce- 
ment at  once  went  the  rounds  of  the  newspaper  press  that  three  of 
England's  greatest  poets,  Scott,  Byron,  and  Shakspere,  were  cripples  ! 

1  A  mistake.  Chettle  neither  made  an  apology  to  Shakspere  nor 
commended  him.  The  entire  fabric,  venerable  with  age,  rests  on  a 
misapprehension.     See  pp.  150-153. 


Fact  and  Fiction. 


271 


on  the  theatre,  he  saw 
much  of  Shakespeare 
and  his  plays." 1  — 
Richard  Grant  White. 
1593.  To  the  Earl  of  South- 

ampton Shakespeare 
dedicated  "  his  '  Venus 
and  Adonis,'  although 
he  had  not  asked  per- 
mission to  do  so,  as  the 
dedication  shows;  and 
in  those  days  and  long 
after,  without  some 
knowledge  of  his  man, 
and  some  opportunity 
of  judging  how  he 
would  receive  the  com- 
pliment, a  player  would 
not  have  ventured  to 
take  such  a  liberty  with 
the  name  of  a  noble- 
man." 2  —  Ibid. 

1596.  Aug.  n.     His  son,  Ham- 

net,buried  at  Stratford. 

1597.  Bought  New  Place 
in  Stratford. 

1598.  Oct.  25.     Returned      on 

the  rolls  of  Stratford 
as  the  holder  (during 
a  famine)  of  ten  quar- 
ters of  corn. 
"  Sold  1  load  of  stone 

to  Town  of  Stratford 
for  \od. 

1  As  to  Shakspere,  wholly  imaginary.  Not  the  slightest  evi- 
dence exists  that  Shakspere,  the  actor,  was  patronized  by  the  Earl 
of  Southampton. 

2  A  ju.>t  commentary,  discrediting  Shakspere  as  the  author  of  the 
poem.     Southampton  and  Bacon  were  intimate  friends. 


72 


Bacon  vs.  Shakspere. 


1598.  Feb.  4.     Richard  Quiney 

addresses  a  letter  to 
Shakspere,  asking  a 
loan  of  ^30  on  secur- 
ity.  1 

1599.  Applied  for  a  grant 
of  coat-armor  to  his 
father."2 

1600.  Sues  John  Clayton 
for  £7,  and  obtains 
verdict. 

1602.  Buys  two  parcels  of 
land  and  a  cottage  in 
Stratford. 

1603.  Appointed  one  of 
His  Majesty'sservants 
for  theatrical  perform- 
ances. 

1604.  Sues  Philip  Rogers 
at  Stratford  for  £1 
1 5^-.  \od.  for  malt  de- 
livered, including  2s. 
loaned. 

1605.  Purchases  a  moiety 
of  the  tithes  of  Strat- 


1599.  "The     patent     of 

arms  granted  to  his 
father."3  —  Prof. 
Baynes. 


"  King    James,  it  is 
well    known,    honored 


1  The  only  letter  to  him  extant.  None  from  him  to  any  one  ever 
heard  of. 

2  "  There  can  hardly  be  any  doubt  that  the  pedigree  which  he 
constructed  for  himself  in  order  to  obtain  a  coat-of-arms  from  the 
Herald's  College,  and  so  enter  the  ranks  of  'gentlemen,'  was  'whole- 
sale lying,'  and  that  Shakspere  knew  it  was."  —  Thomas  Davidson. 

"  It  was  for  this  social  consideration  that  he  toiled  and  schemed." 
—  Richard  Grant  White. 

3  The  application  appears  to  have  been  rejected.  No  record  of  a 
grant  on  the  books  of  the  Herald's  College  has  ever  been  published. 

"  It  seems  that  the  grant  was  not  ratified."  — Henry  M or  ley,  Eng- 
lish Writers,  Vol.  X.  p.  498.     (1893.) 


Fact  and  Fiction. 


273 


ford,  Old  Stratford, 
Bishopton,  and  Wel- 
combe  for  ^440. 

1607,  June  5.     His       daughter 

Susanna  marries  Dr. 
John-Hall,  at  Stratford. 

1608.  Sues  John  Adden- 
broke  of  Stratford, 
obtaining  judgment 
for  £6,  together  with 
£\  4s.  costs.  Adden- 
broke  not  being  found, 
sues  his  bondsman 
Hornby. 

"  Present,  as  sponsor, 

at  baptism  of  son  of 
Henry      Walker,      in 
Stratford. 
1610.  Purchases  20  acres 

of     pasture     land    in 
Stratford. 


Shakespeare  so  far  as 
to  write  to  him  with 
his  own  hand." 1  — 
Schlegel. 


1608.  He  was  in  the  habit 

of  visiting  at  several 
titled  houses,  amongst 
others  those  of  the  Earl 
of  Bedford  and  Sir 
John  Harrington."2  — 
Prof.  Baynes. 

"  "  The     only    known 

volume  that  certainly 
belonged  to  Shakspere 
and  contains  his  auto- 
graph is  Florio's  ver 
sion  of  Montaigne's 
Essays  in  the  British 
Museum."  3  —  Ibid. 


1  First  mentioned  nearly  one  hundred  and  fifty  years  after  Shak- 
speare's  death,  by  Oldys,  who  said  he  received  the  story  from  Shef- 
field, Duke  of  Buckingham,  who  in  turn  claimed  that  he  received  it 
from  the  notorious  Sir  William  Davenant.  Suitable  only  for  the 
most  robust  credulity. 

"  There  is  no  proof  that  any  personal  patronage  was  extended  to 
Shakspere  by  either  Elizabeth  or  James."  —  Ward's  English  Dra- 
matic Literature,  Vol.  II.  p.  279. 

2  A  sheer  fabrication.  "  Of  Shakspere's  social  life  during  his  long 
residence  in  London  we  have  not  even  a  tradition."  —  Richard  G7-ant 
White.  About  1603,  Sir  Walter  Raleigh  founded  the  Mermaid  Club, 
which,  Mr.  White  says,  "  owes  its  wide  celebrity  and  perpetual  fame 
chiefly  to  Shakespeare,"  although  (he  adds  naively)  "there  is  no 
evidence  that  Shakspere  was  one  of  its  members." 

8  The  alleged  autograph  being  beyond  all  reasonable  doubt  a  for- 
gery, it  is  safe  to  say  that  Shakspere  never  possessed  the  book. 

18 


274 


Bacon  vs.  Shakspere. 


1 612.  Brings  suit  to  pro- 

tect his  interest  in  the 
tithes  of  corn,  grain, 
hay,  wool,  lambs,  etc., 
of  Stratford. 


161 3,  March  10.     Purchases  a 

house  in  London  for 

"     March  11.  Mortgages  the 

same  for  ^60. 
"     June.     Mrs.  Hall  brings 

suit  against  John  Lane 

for  slander.2 

1614,  Oct.  28.     Guaranteed  by- 

William  Replingham 
against  loss  by  enclos- 
ure of  commons  at 
Stratford. 


1610-13.  "  He  returned  to 
Stratford  a  disap- 
pointed man."1  — 
Richard  Grant  White. 


1  A  total  error.  Shakspere  returned  to  Stratford  in  middle  life, 
possessed  of  that  which  had  evidently  been  the  sole  object  of  his  am- 
bition, a  large  fortune.  We  have  no  hint  from  any  source  whatever 
that  the  society  of  his  illiterate  neighbors,  in  a  "  dirty  village " 
(White),  was  not  perfectly  congenial  to  him. 

2  "  In  June,  1613,  there  was  a  tiresome  bit  of  gossip  in  circulation 
at  Stratford-on-Avon,  respecting  Mrs.  Hall,  Shakespeare's  elder 
daughter,  and  Ralph  Smith  and  John  Palmer.  Matters  came  to  such 
a  pass  that  Dr.  Hall  deemed  it  advisable  to  take  proceedings  in  the 
Ecclesiastical  Court  against  one  of  the  persons  who  had  slandered 
his  wife.  The  case  was  heard  at  Worcester,  July  15,  1613,  and  ap- 
pears to  have  been  conducted  somewhat  mysteriously,  the  deposition 
of  Robert  Whatcot,  the  poet's  intimate  friend,  being  the  only  evi- 
dence recorded,  and  throwing  no  substantial  light  on  the  merits  of  the 
dispute."  —  Halliwell-Phillipps'1  Outlines,  p.  16S. 

Lane  made  no  defence,  and  was  excommunicated. 

3  Shakspere  at  first  opposed  the  enclosures  as  contrary  to  his  per- 


Fact  and  Fiction.  275 

1614,  Nov.  16.  Comes  to  Lon- 
don. 

1614,  Nov.  17.  Explains  to 
Thomas  Greene  how 
far  the  enclosure  at 
Welcombe  will  ex- 
tend.1 

1616.  Feb.  11.     His    daughter 
Judith    marries 
Thomas  Quiney  with- 
out a  license.2 
"  Bridegroom        and 

bride  arraigned  be- 
fore the  Ecclesiastical 
Court  at  Worcester 
for  violation  of  law. 

1616,  March  25.  Makes  his 
will,  a 

sonal  interests,  but  afterwards,  on  being  privately  guaranteed  against 
loss  by  the  promoter  of  the  scheme,  withdrew  his  opposition.  The 
remonstrance  of  the  town,  addressed  to  him  on  behalf  of  the  poorer 
classes,  seems  to  have  had  no  effect. 

"  It  is  certain  that  the  poet  was  in  favor  of  the  enclosures."  — 
Halliwell-Phillipps'  Outlines,  p.  168. 

"  That  Shakspere  was  accessory  to  an  attempt  to  enclose  the  com- 
mon lands  of  Stratford  and  so  oppress  the  poor,  is  beyond  a  doubt." 
—  Thomas  Davidson,  N.  Y.  World,  1S87. 

1  One  of  the  two  conversations  only  in  which  Shakspere  is  re- 
ported to  have  taken  part.     The  other  is  given  by  Manningham. 

2  "  Judith's  marriage  with  Mr.  Quiney  was  a  mysterious  and  hur- 
ried one.  There  appears  to  have  been  some  reason  for  accelerating 
the  event."  —  Halliwell-Phillipps'  Outlines,  p.  182. 

Mr.  Quiney  was  a  liquor-dealer ;  he  was  fined  by  the  town  for 
profanity  and  for  making  a  public  nuisance  of  his  tippling-shop. 

3  "  Shakspere's  will  was  one  of  great  particularity,  making  little 
legacies  to  nephews  and  nieces,  and  leaving  swords  and  rings  to 
friends  and  acquaintances;  and  yet  his  wife's  name  is  omitted  from 
the  document  in  its  original  form,  and  only  appears  by  an  after- 
thought, in  an  interlineation,  as  if  his  attention  had  been  called  to  the 


276  Bacon  vs.  Shakspere. 

1616,  April.  "Two  of  the 
most  cherished  of  his 
companions  and  fellow- 
poets,  Drayton  and  Ben 
Jonson,  had  paid  a  visit 
to  Stratford  and  been 
entertained  by  Shak- 
spere only  a  few  days 
before  his  death."  x  — 
Prof.  Baynes. 
1616,  April  23.     His  death. 

1635,  Nov.  25.  Dr.  Hall's 
death.'2 

1642.  Mrs.  Hall  sells  her 

husband's  note-book 
under  peculiar  circum- 
stances.8 

omission,  and  for  decency's  sake  he  would  not  have  the  mother  of  his 
children  unnoticed  altogether.  The  lack  of  any  other  bequest  than 
the  furniture  of  her  chamber  is  of  small  moment  in  comparison  with 
the  slight  shown  by  that  interlineation.  A  second-best  bed  might  be 
passed  over;  but  what  can  be  done  with  second-best  thoughts?"  — 
Richard  Grant  White. 

"  She  was  left  by  her  husband  without  house  or  furniture  (except 
the  second-best  bed),  or  a  kind  word,  or  any  other  token  of  love."  — 
Chief  Justice  Campbell 's  Legal  Acquirements  of  Shakespeare,  p   106. 

"  He  had  forgot  her."  —  Malone. 

"  In  his  will  he  only  sparingly  and  meanly  bequeathed  to  her  his 
second-best  bed."  —  Gervinus. 

1  A  tradition  not  heard  of  till  fifty  years  after  Shakspere's  death. 

2  Dr.  Hall    was  expelled   from   the  corporation  of  Stratford  in 

1633- 

3  Dr.  Cooke,  who  published  this  note-book  in  1659,  states  in  the 
preface  how  he  came  into  possession  of  it.  It  appears  that  at  the 
beginning  of  the  civil  war,  probably  in  1642,  he  was  acting  as  surgeon 
to  a  Roundhead  troop  stationed  at  Stratford  Bridge ;  and,  having 
been  invited  to  visit  New  Place,  was  shown  by  Mrs.  Hall  some  books 
and  manuscripts  that  had  belonged  to  her  deceased  husband.  He 
was  also  informed  that  she  had  in  the  house  some  other  books,  once 


Fact  and  Fiction.  277 

1649,  July  11.  Mrs.  Hall's 
death. 

1662,  Feb.  9.  Mrs.  Ouiney's 
death. 

1669-70.  Death  of  Elizabeth, 
the  only  grandchild 
and  last  lineal  de- 
scendant of  William 
Shakspere  of  Strat- 
ford-on-Avon. 

In  1780  George  Steevens  wrote  the  following  oft- 
quoted  summary:  — 

"  All  that  is  known  with  any  degree  of  certainty  concerning 
Shakspere  is  —  that  he  was  born  at  Stratford-upon-Avon  — 
married  and  had  children  there  —  went  to  London,  where  he 
commenced  actor  and  wrote  poems  and  plays — returned  to 
Stratford,  made  his  will,  died,  and  was  buried." 

We  venture  to  bring  this  summary  to  date,  as 
follows :  — 

All  that  is  known  with  any  degree  of  certainty 
concerning  Shakspere  is,  that  he  was  born  at  Strat- 
ford-upon-Avon ;  married,  and  had  children  there ; 
went  to  London,  where  he  became  an  actor,  and  was 
reputed  to  be  the  author  of  poems  and  plays ;  ac- 
quired wealth  ;   applied  for  a  title,  which  was  refused ; 

the  property  of  a  physician  who  had  pledged  them  to  Dr.  Hall  for 
money  advanced.  Then  ensued  the  following  conversation:  "  I  told 
her  that  if  I  liked  them  I  would  give  her  the  money  again.  Mrs. 
Hall  then  brought  them  forth,  amongst  which  there  was  this,  with 
another  of  the  author's,  both  intended  for  the  press.  I,  being  ac- 
quainted with  Mr.  Hall's  hand,  told  her  that  one  or  two  of  them  were 
her  husband's  and  showed  them  to  her.  She  denied,  I  affirmed,  till 
I  perceived  she  began  to  be  offended,  and  at  last  I  returned  her  the 
money." 


2  7$  Bacon  vs.  Shakspere. 

invested  money  in  real  estate,  and  in  the  tithes  of  his 
native  town ;  instituted  many  lawsuits ;  returned  to 
Stratford ;  sold  malt ;  entertained  a  preacher  at  his 
house,  and  drew  on  the  town  for  one  quart  of  claret 
wine  and  one  quart  of  sack  (20d.}  for  the  occasion; 
favored  a  conspiracy  to  enclose  the  commons  there; 
made  his  will,  died,  and  was  buried. 

"  There  is  not  recorded  of  him  [Shakspere]  one  noble  or 
lovable  action."  —  Thomas  Davidson. 

"  An  obscure  and  profane  life."  —  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson. 

"A  record  unadorned  by  a  single  excellence  or  virtue."  — 
William  O'Connor  in  Hamlet's  Note-Book. 

"  I  am  not  sure  that  we  should  not  venerate  Shakespeare  as 
much  if  the  biographers  had  left  him  undisturbed  in  his  obscu- 
rity. To  be  told  that  he  played  a  trick  on  his  brother  player  in 
a  licentious  amour,  or  that  he  died  of  a  drunken  frolic  .  .  . 
does  not  exactly  inform  us  of  the  man  who  wrote  '  Lear.'  "  — 
Hallam. 

"  Whether  Bacon  wrote  the  wonderful  plays  or  not,  I  am 
quite  sure  the  man  Shakspere  neither  did  nor  could."  —  John 
G.  Whittier. 

"I  am  a  firm  believer  in  the  Baconian  theory."  —  BenJ.  F. 
Butler. 

"  I  would  not  be  surprised  to  find  myself  ranged  with  Mrs. 
Pott  and  Judge  Holmes  on  the  side  of  the  philosopher  against 
the  play-actor."  —  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes. 

"  Any  man  who  believes  that  William  Shakspere  of  Strat- 
ford wrote  '  Hamlet '  or  '  Lear '  is  a  fool."  —  John  Bright. 

"  Ask  your  own  hearts,  ask  your  common  sense,  to  con- 
ceive the  possibility  of  the  author  of  the  plays  being  .  .  .  the 
anomalous,  the  wild,  the  irregular  genius  of  our  daily  criticism." 
—  Coleridge. 

In  a  word,  to  look  persistently  to  this  source  for 
the  literary  masterpieces  of  all  time  is  to  illustrate 
that  subtle   and   practically  unlimited   power  of  the 


Unwise  Conservatism.  279 

human  will  to  ignore,  in  the  face  of  consequences 
deemed  objectionable,  the  most  elementary  laws  of 
evidence.  It  is  necessary,  perhaps,  that  the  car  of 
progress  be  equipped,  like  our  railway  trains,  with  a 
dozen  brakemen  to  one  stoker;  but  the  time  will 
come,  we  do  not  hesitate  to  predict,  when  this  un- 
reasoning and  perverse,  not  to  say  intemperate,  con- 
servatism in  the  public  mind  on  the  subject  of  the 
authorship  of  "  Shake-speare "  will  be  universally 
regretted  as  a  reflection  upon  the  scholarship  of  our 
age. 


VIII. 

SUMMARY. 

One  word  more.  A  common  farm-laborer  in 
England  uses,  it  is  said,  five  hundred  words ;  the 
average  educated  business  man,  three  thousand ;  a 
writer  like  Thackeray,  five  thousand ;  the  great  poet, 
scholar,  and  publicist,  John  Milton,  "  who  carried 
the  idiomatic  powers  of  the  English  tongue,"  says 
Macaulay,  "  to  their  highest  perfection,  and  to  whose 
style  every  ancient  and  every  modern  language  con- 
tributed something  of  grace,  of  energy,  and  of  music," 
used  seven  thousand.  How  many  words  did  the  au- 
thor of  "  Shake-speare  "  use?  According  to  Professor 
Craik,  a  recognized  authority  in  this  branch  of  sci- 
ence, twenty-one  thousand,  —  inflectional  forms  not 
counted. 

Who  was  it,  living  in  England  in  the  latter  part  of 
the  sixteenth  and  the  early  part  of  the  seventeenth 
centuries,  that  compassed  so  enormous  a  range  of 
diction?  Was  it  William  Shakspere,  the  actor,  born 
and  bred  in  what  Halliwell-Phillipps  called  a  "  bookless 
neighborhood,"  where  the  number  of  books  outside 
of  the  school  and  the  church  could  not  have  ex- 
ceeded, as  Richard  Grant  White  tells  us,  a  half-dozen 
in  the  whole  town,  —  where,  in  a  population  of  about 
twelve  hundred,  not  more  than  fifty,  or  at  most  one 


Summary.  281 

hundred,  persons  could  read  or  write,  whose  own 
father  and  mother  could  not  read  or  write,  and  both 
of  whose  daughters  went  to  their  graves  late  in  life 
without  having  read,  it  is  supposed,  a  line  of  their 
father's  works,  if  he  ever  wrote  any,  —  one  of  them 
even  selling  the  manuscript  copy  of  a  book,  written 
by  her  deceased  husband  for  publication,  because 
she  could  not  identify  the  handwriting,  though  re- 
peatedly urged  to  do  so?  Was  this  the  man,  unedu- 
cated, as  his  contemporaries  called  him,  an  impostor, 
as  every  one  who  knew  him  in  the  character  of  a 
dramatist  called  him,  —  was  this  the  man  whose  vo- 
cabulary, enriched  with  the  spoils  of  five  languages 
besides  his  own,  was  greater,  three  times  greater,  it 
would  seem,  than  that  of  any  other  mortal  who  ever 
lived?  Must  we  permit  the  nineteenth  century  to  go 
out  and  join  the  vast  congregation  of  the  ages  stained 
with  a  superstition  so  palpable,  so  humiliating  to  us, 
so  unspeakably  absurd  as  this? 

Let  us  rather  turn  to  the  man  who  at  the  age  of 
twelve  entered  Cambridge  University;  who  at  fifteen 
exhausted  that  fount  of  learning,  and  left  it  without 
taking  his  degree ;  who  then  devoted  three  years  to 
the  further  study  of  literature,  art,  science,  govern- 
ment, and  the  modern  languages,  on  the  Continent; 
who  on  his  return  home  notified  his  uncle,  the  Prime 
Minister  of  England,  that  he  had  made  all  knowledge, 
ALL  KNOWLEDGE,  his  province ;  who  was  kept  from 
active  service  in  political  life  till  he  was  nearly  fifty 
years  old,  and  was  then  found  to  be  in  the  possession 
of  phenomenal  habits  of  study  which  his  acknowl- 
edged works  do  not  account  for, — the  first  of  his 
philosophical  series   not  appearing  till  he  had  been 


282  B etc 07i  vs.  Shakspere. 

twenty-nine  years  out  of  college ;  whose  mind  was 
comprehensive  rather  than  analytical,  unable  to 
grasp  the  commonest  physical  science  in  which 
mathematics  plays  a  prominent  part,  but  conspicu- 
ously rich  in  that  which  makes  the  plays  immortal,  — 
practical  wisdom,  knowledge  of  human  nature,  and 
of  the  secret  springs  of  human  conduct;  whose  man- 
ner of  writing  was  wonderfully  varied  and  ductile ; 
who  has  justly  been  styled  the  Prose-Poet  of  Modern 
Science ;  who  privately  styled  himself  a  "  concealed 
poet ;  "  who  in  the  most  solemn  manner  before  his 
death  claimed  to  have  sought  the  good  of  all  men  in 
some  work  or  works  which  were  "  despised,"  which 
he  had  therefore  written,  as  he  said,  "  in  a  weed,"  or 
under  a  pseudonym,  and  which  Sir  Toby  Matthew 
undoubtedly  referred  to  when  he  pronounced  the 
author  the  most  prodigious  wit  of  all  the  world,  though 
known  by  the  name  of  another ;  and,  finally,  whose  in- 
tellectual eminence  is  to  this  day  one  of  the  unsolved 
enigmas  of  mankind. 


INDEX. 


Abbott,  Edwin  A.,  his  introduction  to  Mrs.  Pott's  edition  of  the 
Promus,  54,  55;  on  Bacon's  inaccuracies,  137;  Bacon's  private 
character,  181. 

Absque  hoc,  a  species  of  traverse  known  to  Shake-speare,  8. 

Addison,  Joseph,  on  Bacon's  intellectual  powers,  46-48 ;  Shake- 
speare's literary  style,  120;  Bacon's  servants,  177  ;  Bacon's  private 
character,  181. 

Adonis,  Gardens  of,  214. 

Advancement  of  Learning,  a  curious  typographical  mistake  in,  115. 

^Eschylus,  likeness  of  Clytemnestra  to  Lady  Macbeth,  2,  3. 

Allgemeine  Zeitung,  on  reasons  for  Bacon's  concealment  of 
authorship  of  Shake-speare,  126. 

Allibone,  S.  A.,  on  extent  of  Shake-speare's  knowledge,  9,  10;  on 
Stephen  Gosson,  49. 

Alphabet,  works  of  the,  mysterious  references  to,  51. 

Amores,  Ovid's,  quotation  from,  in  'Venus  and  Adonis,'  15. 

Anachronisms  in  Shake-speare,  129-134;  in  Bacon,  134-137. 

Apothegms,  Bacon's,  errors  in,  135—137. 

Arber,  Edward,  his  edition  of  Bacon's  Essays,  86. 

Aristotle,  quoted  in  error  by  Bacon  and  Shake-speare,  129. 

Arnold,  Matthew,  on  Shakspere  self-school'd,  12. 

Astrology,  believed  in  by  Bacon  and  Shake-speare,  251. 

Athen^um,  the  (London),  on  Shakspere's  indifference  to  literary 
fame,  36;  Shake-speare's  knowledge  of  Italian  scenes  and  cus- 
toms, 215. 

Aubrey,  John,  on  Bacon  as  a  concealed  poet,  85  ;  various  estimates 
of,  85. 

Auld  Robin  Gray,  concealed  authorship  of,  127. 


Bacon,  Lady  Anne,  culture  of,  48 ;  chides  her  sons  on  account  of 
their  fondness  for  the  drama,  88  ;  insanity  of,  236. 

Bacon,  Anthony,  his  strong  dramatic  tastes,  142  ;  rescues  Francis 
from  prison,  87 ;  commemorated  in  '  Merchant  of  Venice,'  87  ; 
opposed  to  Lord  Burleigh,  206. 


284 


Index. 


Bacon,  Delia,  the  first  to  reveal  true  authorship  of  Shake-speare  108 ; 
on  Bacon's  philanthropic  spirit,  1S2. 

Bacon,  Francis,  name,  12  ;  alleged  indifference  to  fame  as  a  drama- 
tist, 36,  124,  129;  intellectual  greatness,  44-48;  parentage,  4S  ; 
political  ambition,  48,49;  secret  connection  with  the  stage,  50; 
enigmatical  correspondence  with  Sir  Toby  Matthew,  51,  52 ; 
Promus,  53-57;  parallelisms,  57-80;  love  and  knowledge  of 
flowers,  80-82;  Northumberland  MSS.,  S2-84;  calls  himself  a 
"concealed  poet,"  85,  282;  so  called  by  Aubrey,  85;  intimacy 
with  Florio,  85  ;  probable  secret  author  of  a  sonnet  commended 
by  Florio,  86 ;  acquainted  with  Montaigne's  Essays,  86 ;  want 
of  employment,  S7-88 ;  imprisoned  for  debt,  87  ;  released  by 
his  brother  Anthony,  87  ;  chided  by  his  mother  on  account  of 
his  dramatic  tastes,  88 ;  his  "  working  fancy,"  88  ;  becomes  inti- 
mate with  Ben  Jonson,  104;  fills  all  numbers,  106;  his  History 
of  Henry  VII.,  filling  the  gap  in  the  historical  series  of  plays, 
10S,  109;  in  private  life  and  at  leisure  when  the  plays  are 
first  collected  and  published,  112;  careless  of  the  printing  of 
his  works,  115;  '  Timon  of  Athens'  and  'Henry  VIII.'  auto- 
biographical, 116,  117;  alludes  to  certain  writings  as  works 
of  recreation,  which,  if  acknowledged,  might  make  him  more 
famous,  127;  errors  in  his  writings,  129-137;  his  Essay  on 
Love,  containing  sentiments  similar  to  Shake-speare's,  13S-140; 
his  practical  knowledge  of  dramatic  art,  141,  142;  the  'Misfor- 
tunes of  Arthur,'  142  ;  recommends  that  dramatic  art  be  taught  in 
schools,  143;  knowledge  of  localities  in  Warwickshire,  145,  146; 
dark  period  in  his  life,  157 ;  his  acknowledged  poetry,  159  ;  transla- 
tions of  the  Psalms,  160,  161  ;  translation  of  a  Greek  epigram, 
165,  166;  chancellor  of  Mt.  Parnassus,  167;  writes  to  Essex  that 
the  waters  of  Parnassus  are  quenching  his  thirst  for  office,  168 ; 
the  poetical  character  of  his  prose,  169-172;  admitted  by  Sped- 
ding  to  have  had  all  the  capabilities  of  a  great  poet,  171,  172  ; 
his  treatment  of  Essex,  174;  bribery  charges,  175-178;  his  in- 
difference to  money,  175;  his  servants,  176;  testimony  of  con- 
temporaries to  his  private  character,  178;  of  his  biographers  and 
critics,  181-183;  extent  of  his  vocabulary,  184;  various  styles  of 
writing,  187-195;  use  of  the  phrase,  "I  cannot  tell,"  195-198; 
familiarity  with  hunting  and  hawking,  203 ;  faculty  for  detecting 
remote  analogies,  203 ;  constantly  making  alterations  in  his 
writings,  203,  204;  educated  at  Cambridge,  and  familiar  with 
local  dialect,  204,  205  ;  caricatures  Sir  John  Oldcastle  as  Falstaff, 
and  Lord  Burleigh  as  Polonius,  205-211  ;  refers  to  Sir  Edward 
Coke  in  'Twelfth  Night,' 212;  plagiarisms.  212  :  familiar  with  story 
of  Cymbeline,  213;  fond  of  punning,  213;  classical  lore  in  his 
writings,  214,  215;  sojourn  on  the  Continent,  215;  familiar  with 
courts  and  court  etiquette,  223  ;  cipher-writing,  223,  224  ;  singular 


Index.  285 

use  of  the  word  weed,  224;  character  of  his  philosophy,  225-229; 
knowledge  of  history,  229,  230;  of  law,  230 ;  of  medicine,  235, 
236;  of  natural  history,  237,  244;  his  religion,  244,  245;  his 
definition  of  poetry,  246,  247  ;  knowledge  of  musical  science,  247- 
249;  an  orator,  249;  fondness  for  emblems,  252;  summary  of  his 
life,  281,  2S2. 

Baltimore  Sun,  correspondent  of,  on  Shake-speare's  knowledge  of 
Italian  scenes  and  customs,  216,  218. 

Barton-on-the-Heath,  146. 

Baynes,  T.  S.,  on  Shake-speare's  knowledge  of  Latin,  2,  15 ;  of  Ital- 
ian, 4;  of  French,  5;  of  classics,  6;  extent  and  variety  of  Shake- 
speare's knowledge,  9. 

Beaumont,  Francis,  his  graceful  tribute  to  Bacon,  178. 

Bed  of  Ware,  212. 

Bees  in  Shake-speare,  241-243. 

Betterton,  Thomas,  his  visit  to  Stratford,  267. 

Billiards,  known  to  the  ancients,  133. 

Boener,  Peter,  his  testimony  to  Bacon's  private  character,  178. 

Bohemia,  sea-coast  of,  94,  133. 

Bright,  John,  his  opinion  of  the  authorship  of  '  Hamlet '  and  '  King 
Lear,'  278. 

Browne,  C.  Elliot,  social  condition  of  Stratford  in  time  of  Shak- 
spere,  19. 

Burleigh,  Lord,  caricatured  as  Polonius,  205-211. 

Bust  of  Shakspere,  description  of,  31,  32,  218. 

Butler,  Benjamin  F.,  his  opinion  of  the  authorship  of  Shake-speare, 
278. 

Byron,  Lord,  his  doubts  concerning  authorship  of  Shake-speare, 
118. 


Cambridge  University,  dialect  of,  205. 

Campbell,  Chief  Justice,  on  Shake-speare's  knowledge  of  law,  7, 

231. 
Cavendish,  Margaret,  on  the  comparative  literary  merits  of  her 

husband  and  Shake-speare,  120. 
Chamrerlain,   Mellen,   on   Shake-speare's   autograph  in   Boston 

Public  Library,  13,  14. 
Chambers'  Edinburg  Journal,  on  Ben  Jonson  and  Bacon's  secret, 

108. 
Cheltenham,  Bacon's  estate  in,  146. 
Chettle,   Henry,   his   alleged  commendation   of   Shakspere,   148, 

150-153,  270. 
Church,  Richard  W.,  on  Bacon's  private  character,  182  ;  poetical 

nature  of  Bacon's  philosophy,  229. 
Cipher-writing,  Bacon's  studies  in,  223. 


2S6  Index. 

Clarke,  Charles  and  Mary  Cowden,  their  opinion  that  the  author 
of  the  Shake-speare  plays  was  educated  at  a  university,  6 ;  on 
Shake-speare's  knowledge  of  law,  8. 

Coat-armor,  John  Shakspere's,  27,  28,  272. 

Coke,  Sir  Edward,  caricatured  in  'Twelfth  Night,'  211,  212. 

Coleridge,  Samuel  Taylor,  his  opinion  that  Shake-speare  had  a 
scholastic  education,  6 ;  philosophy  in  Shake-speare,  9 ;  incon- 
gruity between  the  life  of  Shakspere  and  the  works  of  Shake- 
speare, 43;  unique  character  of  the  Shake-speare  plays,  154, 
278. 

Collier,  J.  P.,  on  the  '  Misfortunes  of  Arthur,'  142. 

Common  lands  at  Stratford,  enclosure  of,  28,  275. 

Composite  authorship,  theory  of,  153—155. 

Condell,  Henry,  associate  editor  of  the  first  folio,  113,  148,  149. 

Confessio  Fraternitatis,  concerning  an  imposture  on  the  stage,  42. 

Craik,  George  L.,  on  extent  of  Shake-speare's  vocabulary,  185;  on 
mysterious  nature  of  Bacon's  eminence,  227. 

Crispinus,  a  caricature  of  Shakspere,  94-100. 

Cuckoo,  in  Shake-speare,  243. 

Cymbeline,  story  of,  212,  213. 


D'Alembert,  on  intellectual  eminence  of  Francis  Bacon,  47. 
Davenant,  Sir  William,  re-writes  Shake-speare's  plays,  121 ;  letter 

of  King  James  I.  to  Shakspere,  273. 
Davidson,  Thomas,  on  the  Shakspere  coat-of-arms,  272  ;  on  the  facts 

of  Shakspere's  life,  278. 
Davies,  John,  asked  by  Bacon  to  be  "good  to  concealed  poets,"  85. 
Davis,  Cushing  K.,  on  Shake-speare's  knowledge  of  law,  8. 
Deer  in  Shake-speare,  243. 

Denham,  Sir  John,  testimony  of,  to  Shakspere's  illiteracy,  n. 
Dethic,  Sir  William,  charged  with  bribery  in  the  matter  of  the 

Shakspere  coat-of-arms,  28. 
Digges,  Leonard,  alleged  testimony  of,  to  Shakspere  as  the  author 

of  the  plays,  14S-150. 
Dixon,  Hepworth,  descriptive  sketches  of  Bacon,  141,  173,  174; 

on  the  bribery  charges,  177  ;  Bacon's  philanthropy,  182. 
Donnelly,  Ignatius,  concerning  portraits  of  Shakspere,  36 ;  diction 

of  Shake-speare,  99;  triple  forms  of  expression,  194. 
Dove,  the,  in  Shake-speare,  243. 
Dowdall,  John,  his  visit  to  Stratford,  11. 
Dowden,  Edward,  on  Shake-speare's  admiration  of  men  of  action, 

139;  the  dark  period  in  Shakspere's  life,  155-158. 
Doyle,  John  P.,  on  trial  scene  in  '  Merchant  of  Venice,'  232-235. 
Draper,  John  W.,  on  character  of  Bacon's  system  of  philosophy, 

22S. 


Index.  287 

Droeshout  engraving,  the,  35. 

Dryden,  John,  on  Shakspere's  illiteracy,  11,  12;  his  criticisms  of  the 
plays,  120;  re-writes  the  'Tempest,'  121. 


EniNBURG  Review,  on  Bacon's  jest-book,  138. 

Elze,  Karl,  on  Shake-speare's  knowledge  of  French,  4,  5;  of  Span- 
ish, 5  ;  of  Italian  scenes  and  customs,  216;  of  Romano  as  a  sculptor, 
219. 

Emerson,  Ralph  Waldo,  on  Shake-speare's  wisdom,  8  ;  greatness 
of  Shake-speare  unrecognized  by  contemporaries,  23  ;  incongruity 
between  life  of  Shakspere  and  works  ascribed  to  him,  43,  158. 

Erdmann,  Johann  E.,  on  Bacon's  treatment  of  Essex,  174. 

Errors  and  anachronisms,  in  Bacon  and  Shake-speare,  129-137. 

Essex,  Earl  of,  treason  of,  119;  opposes  Bacon,  146;  prosecuted  by 
Bacon,  174. 


Farmer,   Richard,   on   Shake-speare's  knowledge   of  foreign  lan- 
guages, 215. 
Fearon,  Francis,  on  Bacon's  correspondence  with  Sir  Toby  Matthew, 

Si- 
Feis,  Jacob,  on  Crispinus  as  a  caricature  of  Shakspere,  100. 
Field,  B.  Rush,  on  Shake-speare's  medical  knowledge,  236. 
Fleay,  Frederic  Gard,  on  alleged  apology  of  Chettle  to  Shakspere, 

152. 
Florio,  John,  remarks  on  a  concealed  poet,  85,  86. 
Flowers,  parallel  lists  of,  80-82. 
Folio,  First,  contents  of,  11 1;  compared   with   quartos,  112,114; 

printing  and  pagination,  115. 
Forgeries,  Ireland's,  123,  124. 
Freemasonry,  in  Shake-speare,  263. 
French,  Shake-speare's  knowledge  of,  4. 
Friswell,  James  H.,  opinion  of  Shakspere's  bust  at  Stratford,  32  ; 

of  new  portrait,  35. 
Fuller,  Thomas,  testimony  of,  concerning  Shakspere's  illiteracy,  11 ; 

universality  of  Bacon's  genius,  169. 
Furness,  William  H.,  unable  to  harmonize  the  facts  of  Shakspere's 

life  with  the  writings  ascribed  to  him,  155. 


Galileo,  his  theory  of  the  tides,  128. 

Garrick,  David,  his  description  of  Stratford,  19;  use  of  Shake- 
speare text,  128. 

Gervinus,  G.  G.,  on  Shake-speare's  knowledge  of  Latin,  2 ;  of  Ital- 
ian, 4  ;  of  other  foreign  languages,  5  ;  of  the  classics,  6;  on  Shake- 


288  Index. 

speare's  treatment  of  love,  140 ;  similar  combination   of  mental 

powers  in  Bacon  and  Shake-speare,  228. 
Gibbon,  Edward,  on  Shake-speare's  knowledge  of  Greek,  3. 
Gifford,  William,  his  defence  of  Ben  Jonson,  92  ;  on  Shakspere's 

alleged  assistance  to  Ben  Jonson,  93. 
Gladstone,  William  E  ,  on  the  bribery  charges,  177,  178. 
Goethe,  Wilhelm  von,  anachronisms  of,  133;  use  of  translations, 

215. 
Good-dawning,  salutation  in  'Lear'  and  the  Promus,  55. 
Gosson,  Stephen,  opinion  of  theatres,  49. 
Grammar  School  at  Stratford,  character  of,  16,  19,  267. 
Granville,  George,  re-writes  'Merchant  of  Venice,'  121. 
Grave-diggers'  scene  in  '  Hamlet,'  origin  of,  4. 
Green,  Henry,  emblems  in  heraldry,  255. 
Greene,    Robert,   his   character,  3$n.;   on  Shakspere's   illiteracy, 

12;  personal  hostility  to  Shakspere,  41,  150,  151. 
Guthrie,  William,  on  Bacon's  servants,  177. 


Hall,  John,  his  professional  acquirements,  236;  expelled  from  Cor- 
poration of  Stratford,  276. 

Hallam,  Henry,  on  Bacon's  genius,  47. 

Halliwell-Phillipps,  J.  O.,  on  curriculum  of  Stratford  Grammar 
school,  15;  sanitary  condition  of  Stratford,  19;  John  Shakspere's 
application  for  coat-armor,  27,  28  ;  on  enclosure  of  common  lands 
at  Stratford,  28  ;  the  Stratford  bust,  32 ;  new  portrait  of  Shak- 
spere, 35  ;  play-acting  and  play-writing  in  time  of  Shakspere,  51  ; 
the  Shake-speare  text,  124. 

'  Hamlet,'  date  of,  20  >i. 

Hart,  Joseph  C,  early  doubt  of,  concerning  authorship  of  Shake- 
speare, 118. 

Hart,  Joseph  S.,  on  Shakspere's  bust  at  Stratford,  32. 

Harvey,  Gabriel,  on  authorship  of  the  early  '  Hamlet,'  20. 

Harvey,  William,  unnoticed  by  Bacon,  227. 

Hathaway,  Anne,  her  cottage,  268  ;  bequest  from  her  husband,  265, 
276. 

Hawkins,  Sir  John,  on  Bacon's  knowledge  of  the  theory  of  music,  247. 

Heard,  Franklin  Fiske,  on  Shake-speare's  knowledge  of  law,  8. 

Heat,  similar  conceptions  of,  in  Bacon  and  Shake-speare,  129. 

Heminge,  John,  associate  editor  of  the  first  folio,  113,  148. 

'  Henry  VI.,'  play  of,  enlarged  for  the  folio,  112. 

Henry  VII.,  Reign  of,  omitted  in  the  historical  series  of  the  Shake- 
speare dramas,  108,  109. 

Henry  VIII.,  play  of,  its  autobiographical  character,  116,  117. 

Heraldry,  in  '  Pericles,'  252-261. 

Heywood,  Thomas,  his  personal  reference  to  Shakspere,  3S. 


Index.  289 


Milliard,  Nicholas,  his  portrait  of  Bacon,  92. 

Holmes,  Nathaniel,  on  Shake-speare's  knowledge  of  the  classics,  5; 

his  work  on  the  Authorship  of  Shake-speare,  7  ;  parallelisms,  79 ; 

cover  of  Northumberland  MSS.,  82,  83. 
Holmes,  Oliver  Wendell,  on  the  Baconian  theory,  278. 

HONORIFICABILITUDINITATIBUS,  60,   83. 

Howes,  Edmund,  on  Francis  Bacon  as  a  poet,  167. 
Hudson,  H.  N.,  on  Falstaff  as  a  philosopher,  9. 
Hunter,  Joseph,  on  classical  lore  in  Shake-speare,  215. 

Ingleby,  Clement  M.,  on  position  of  Shake-speare  among  his  con- 
temporaries, 23,  24 ;  Droeshoiit  engraving,  35  ;  play-acting  and  play- 
writing  in  time  of  Shake-speare,  51  ;  Ben  Jonson's  criticism  of 
the  'Tempest,'  101  ;  testimony  of  contemporaries,  148. 

Ireland,  Samuel,  makes  first  mention  of  Anne  Hathaway's  Cottage, 
268. 

Ireland,  William  Henry,  Shakespeare  forgeries  of,  123,  124. 

Isle  of  Dogs,  Nash's,  82,  83. 

Italian  Language,  Shake-speare's  knowledge  of,  3. 

James  I.,  King,  his  letter  to  Shakspere,  273. 

Jest-book,  Bacon's,  138. 

Johnson,  Samuel,  on  wisdom  in  Shake-speare,  9 ;  his  criticism  of 
the  plays,  120. 

Jonson,  Ben,  his  relations  to  Bacon,  91,  104,  105;  verses  commen- 
datory of  Droeshout  engraving,  91  ;  enmity  to  Shakspere,  92-101 ; 
eulogy  on  Shake-speare,  101,  102  ;  on  Bacon's  private  character, 
178. 

Junius,  letters  of,  127. 

Khunrath,  Heinrich,  concerning  an  alleged  imposture  on  the 
stage,  42. 

Kill-cow  conceit,  definition  of,  40. 

Knight,  Charles,  finds  traces  of  Shake-speare  in  'Antigone 'of 
Sophocles,  5  ;  on  Shake-speare's  knowledge  of  classical  antiquity, 
6 ;  on  Shake-speare's  retirement  to  Stratford  and  termination  of 
literary  career  in  middle  life,  24;  Troilus  and  Cressida,  no;  on 
the  Ireland  forgeries,  124;  Shake-speare's  knowledge  of  Italian 
scenes  and  customs,  216. 

Landor,  Walter  Savage,  his  estimate  of  Bacon's  genius,  48  ;  on 

Milton's  verses  to  Shake-speare,  122. 
Lang,  Andrew,  on  Shake-speare's  commendation  of  Giulio  Romano 

as  a  sculptor,  219. 

19 


290  Index. 


Langlin,  J.  N.,  on  Warwickshire  provincialisms  in  Shake-speare, 
147. 

Latin  Language,  Shake-speare's  knowledge  of,  1-3. 

Lark,  the,  in  Shake-speare,  240. 

Law,  Shake-speare's  knowledge  of,  7,  S,  230-235  ;  study  of,  for  the 
"  merry  tales,"  56. 

Lessing,  G.  E.,  on  rules  of  the  drama  relating  to  anachronisms,  133, 
134;  unique  character  of  the  plays,  154. 

Liebig,  Baron,  his  opinion  of  Bacon  as  a  philosopher,  227. 

Lodge,  Thomas,  his  connection  with  Robert  Greene,  152. 

Lowell,  James  Russell,  on  Shake-speare's  knowledge  of  the  Greek 
drama,  3 ;  extent  of  Shake-speare's  knowledge,  9 ;  Shakspere's 
retirement  to  Stratford  in  middle  life  and  occupation  there,  24; 
indifference  to  fame,  36 ;  Shake-speare,  an  apparition,  44  ;  philoso- 
phy of  war,  68  ;  unique  character  of  the  plays,  154;  his  opinion 
of  Ulrici,  157;  Shake-speare's  genius,  159;  classical  lore  in 
Shake-speare,  215;    Shakspere's  parentage,  266. 

Lytton,  Sir  Edward  Bulwer,  on  Bacon  as  a  poet,  171. 


Macaulay,  T.  B.,  on  Bacon's  intellect,  44,  173;  Bacon's  fame,  183. 

Maginn,  William,  on  Shake-speare's  knowledge  of  foreign  lan- 
guages, 215. 

Malone,  Edmund,  finds  traces  of  Shake-speare  in  Latin  authors,  5; 
on  Shake-speare's  knowledge  of  law,  8. 

Manchester,  Rev.  L.  C,  metrical  extracts  from  Bacon  and  Shake- 
speare compared,  200. 

Manningham,  John,  his  personal  reference  to  Shakspere,  38. 

Marlowe,  Christopher,  origin  of  English  blank  verse  for  the 
drama,  40;  Chettle's  apology  to,   151,   152. 

Marston,  John,  caricatured  by  Ben  Jonson,  97-99. 

Massey,  Gerald,  on  Shake-speare's  knowledge  of  law,  231. 

Masson,  David,  his  opinion  of  Milton's  sonnet  to  Shake-speare,  122  ; 
criticism  on  his  life  of  Milton,  269. 

Matthew,  Thomas,  fictitious  name  on  the  title-page  of  a  Bible,  36. 

Medicine,  knowledge  of,  possessed  by  Bacon  and  Shake-speare, 
235,  236. 

Medwin,  Thomas,  conversations  with  Lord  Byron,  118. 

'  Merchant  of  Venice,'  Italian  character  of,  4;  possible  origin,  87  ; 
trial  scene  in,  232-235. 

Mermaid  Club,  founded  by  Sir  Walter  Raleigh,  273. 

'  Merry  Wives  of  Windsor,'  enlarged  for  the  folio,  112. 

'Midsummer  Night's  Dream,'  Greek  source  of  Helena's  lament 
in,  2. 

Milton,  John,  his  allusions  to  Shake-speare,  122  ;  his  translation  of 
the  Psalms,  162,  163;  extent  of  his  vocabulary,  2S0. 


Index.  291 


Minto,  William,  on  Bacon's  inaccuracies,  137. 

Misfortunes  of  Arthur,  the,  142. 

Money,  relative  value  of,  23  ;  the  "  muck  of  the  world,"  202. 

Montagu,  Basil,  on  Bacon's  temperament,  47  ;  treatment  of  ser- 
vants, 176,  177. 

Montaigne,  Michel,  known  to  Bacon,  86;  quoted  in  the  '  Tempest,' 
86;  Shakspere's  alleged  autograph  in  copy  of  Florio's  translation 
of  his  Essays,  86. 

Morgan,  Afpleton,  on  Stratford  Grammar  School,  16,  19;  his  own 
position  on  the  question  of  the  authorship  of  Shakespeare,  19; 
Droeshout  engraving,  35 ;  no  claim  made  to  the  plays  by  or  for 
Shakspere,  36;  on  Sir  Toby  Matthew's  postscript,  53;  paral- 
lelisms, 80;  early  critics  of  Shake-speare,  119;  translations  of  the 
Psalms  by  Bacon  and  Milton  compared,  161,  162  ;  Shake-speare 
an  aristocrat,  223 ;   nonpareil  type,  250. 

Morley,  Henry,  on  John  Shakspere's  application  for  coat- 
armor,  272. 

Music,  art  of,  247-249. 

Nail  illustration,  common  to  Bacon  and  Shake-speare,  129,  130. 
Nash,  Thomas,  his  allusion  to  the  early  '  Hamlet,'  20  n.;  denounces 

Shakspere  as  an  idiot,  37-40;  'Isle  of  Dogs,'  82. 
Natural  history,  treatment  of,  by  Bacon  and  Shake-speare,  237-244. 
Navigation,  art  of,  251,  252. 

Newman,  Francis  W.,  on  the  authorship  of  the  Tragedies,  36, 122, 123. 
Nichol,  John,  on  a  remarkable  parallelism,  61 ;  Bacon's  inaccuracies, 

137;  Bacon's  private  character,  1S1. 
Nicholson,  Brinsley,  on  Ben  Jonson's  relations  to  Shakspere,  100. 
Norris,  J.  P.,  his  opinion  of  the  Shakspere  Bust  at  Stratford,  32 ; 

of  the  Droeshout  engraving,  35. 
Northumberland  MSS.,  82-84. 
Novum  Organum,  frontispiece  of,  252. 

O'Connor,  William,  on  Shake-speare's  knowledge  of  classics,  6; 
Shakspere's  will,  31 ;   Shakspere's  character,  278. 

Oldcastle,  Sir  John,  caricatured  as  Falstaff,  205. 

Oldys,  William,  on  alleged  letter  of  King  James  to  Shakspere,  273. 

Oratory,  249,  250. 

Osborne,  Francis,  on  Bacon's  familiarity  with  hunting  and  hawk- 
ing, 203. 

Otway,  Thomas,  purloins  from  'Romeo  and  Juliet,'  120. 

'Our  English  Homer,'  2. 

'  Othello,' source  of,  4 ;  Macaulay's  opinion  of  it,  20  ;  emendations 
for  the  folio,  113. 

Ovid,  source  of  '  Venus  and  Adonis,'  2;   Amoves,  15. 


292  Index. 


Pagination  of  first  folio,  115. 

Parallelisms  between  Bacon  and    Shake-speare,  57-80;    between 

Shake-speare  and  Montaigne,  86. 
Parkman,   Francis,   offers   an   objection  to  the    Baconian  theory, 

Parmenides,  author  of  the  phrase  "  to  be  or  not  to  be,"  69. 

Pearson,  Charle'  H.,  on  philosophy  of  war,  68;  Dryden's  esti- 
mate of  Shake-speare,  121,  122. 

'  Pericles,'  play  of,  shows  knowledge  of  heraldry,  252-261. 

Pepys,  Samuel,  his  opinion  of  the  Shake-speare  plays,  119. 

Philosophy,  Shake-speare 's  knowledge  of,  8,  228. 

Pitt,  William,  uncontrolled  extravagance  of  his  servants,  175. 

Plagiarisms  of  Bacon  and  Shake-speare,  212. 

Plautus,  his  Me)iaechmi  the  source  of  '  Comedy  of  Errors,'  2. 

Play-actors,  social  position  of,  in  time  of  Shake-speare,  49-51. 

Playwrights,  social  position  of,  in  time  of  Shake-speare,  49-51. 

Pliny's  Epistle  to  Vespasian,  113. 

Plowden's  French  Commentaries,  when  translated,  4. 

Plutarch,  source  of '  Timon  of  Athens,'  2. 

Poet-ape,  Ben  Jonson's  epigram  to,  41,  42. 

Poetaster,  the,  Ben  Jonson's,  94-100. 

Poetry,  Bacon's  acknowledged,  159-167. 

Polonius,  a  caricature  of  Lord  Burleigh,  205-211. 

Pope,  Alexander,  finds  traces  of  Shake-speare  in  Dares  Phrygius,  5; 
illiteracy  of  Shakspere,  12;  Bacon's  genius,  44 ;  Shake-speare's 
object  in  life,  144. 

Portraits  of  Shakspere,  31-35;  number  of,  35,  36. 

Postscript,  Sir  Toby  Matthew's,  51,  52. 

Pott,  Mrs.  Constance  M.,  on  Shake-speare's  "  works  of  the  alpha- 
bet," 51 ;  Promus,  53,  57 ;  '  Misfortunes  of  Arthur,'  142  ;  War- 
wickshire provincialisms  in  Shake-speare,  147,  148. 

Printing,  art  of,  250,  251. 

Promus,  Bacon's,  53-57  ;  salutatory  phrases,  54;  colloquialisms,  55, 
56;    proverbs,  56;   parallelisms,  70-76. 

Proverbs,  in  Bacon's  Promus,  56;  in  Bacon  and  Shake-speare,  219, 
220. 

Provincialisms,  16,  145. 

Psalms,  Bacon's  translations  of,  160-162;   Milton's,  162,  163. 

Puns,  in  writings  of  Bacon  and  Shake-speare,  213. 

Quarterly  Reyiew,  on  Shake-speare's  fine  contempt  for  details, 
137  ;  natural  history,  239-244. 

Quevedo,  Francisco  de,  supposed  allusion  to,  in  Matthew's  post- 
script, 52. 

Quiney,  Thomas,  liquor-dealer,  fined  by  town  of  Stratford,  275. 


Index.  293 

Raleigh,  Sir  Walter,  our  knowledge  of  his  powers  of  repartee, 

213,  214;  founder  of  the  Mermaid  Club,  273. 
Ratsie's  Ghost,  personal  allusion  in,  to  Shakspere,  41. 
Rawley,  William,  his  testimony  to  Bacon's  versatility,  169;  Bacon's 

private  character,  178. 
Reade,  Charles,  on  the  Ireland  forgeries,  124. 
Religion  of  Bacon  and  Shake-speare,  244-246. 
Remusat,  M.  de,  on  Bacon's  intuitions,  229 ;  refusal  of  Academy  of 

Florence  to  admit  Bacon  to  membership,  244,  245. 
'Return  from  Parnassus,' personal  allusion  in,  to  Shakspere,  41. 
'Richard  II.,'  treasonable  use  of  play  of,  by  Earl  of  Essex,  118. 
Romano,  Giulio,  a  sculptor,  218,  219. 
'  Romeo  and  Juliet,'  Italian  character  of,  4;   Promus  entries  in,  53, 

54,  76. 
Rowe,  Nicholas,  his  biography  of  Shakspere,  267. 
Royal  Society,  founded  by  Bacon,  244. 
Rymer,  Thomas,  his  opinion  of  'Othello,'  122-124. 


Salutations  in  the  Promus,  54. 

Saturday  Review,  on  Shake-speare's  commendations  of  Giulio 
Romano  as  a  sculptor,  219. 

Schlegel,  A.  W.  von,  on  incongruity  between  Shakspere's  life 
and  the  writings  ascribed  to  him,  43;  unique  character  of  Shake- 
speare's works,  154. 

Scott,  Sir  Walter,  concealment  of  his  authorship  of  the  Waverley 
novels,  88,  127;  anachronisms,  134. 

Sea  of  troubles,  meaning  of,  65. 

Sense  without  motion,  meaning  of,  66. 

Shake-speare,  William,  the  dramatist,  attainments  of,  1-10 ; 
knowledge  of  Latin,  2 ;  of  Greek,  3,  4 ;  of  Italian,  3,  4 ;  of  French,  4 ; 
of  Spanish,  5 ;  of  ancient  and  modern  literature,  5,  6,  230 ;  of  law, 
7,  8,  56,  230-235 ;  of  philosophy,  8,  228 ;  extent  of  knowledge,  9,  10 ; 
origin  of  pseudonym,  13,  14;  greatness  unrecognized  by  contempo- 
raries, 23,  24;  by  critics  of  succeeding  generations,  1 19-124;  first 
appreciated  by  Lessing,  134 ;  sentiments  on  love,  13S-141 ;  doggerel 
in,  164;  invention  of  words,  184;  extent  of  vocabulary,  185;  words 
of  Latin  origin,  185-187;  literary  style  compared  with  Bacon's,  188, 
189;  impetuosity  of  style,  191  ;  triple  forms  of  expression,  193,  194; 
use  of  phrase,  "  I  cannot  tell,"  196-198  ;  promiscuous  examples  of 
style,  prose  and  verse,  198-201;  remote  analogies,  203;  frequent 
alterations  in  the  plays,  204;  educated  at  Cambridge,  204,  205; 
plagiarisms,  212  ;  punning  on  Bacon's  name  in  the  '  Merry  Wives  of 
Windsor,'  213;  classical  lore,  214;  foreign  travel,  215;  proverbs, 
220,  221;  knowledge  of  court  etiquette,  223;  an  aristocrat,  223; 
singular  use  of  word  weed,  224;  knowledge  of  history,  229,  230;  of 


294  Index. 

medicine,  235,  236;  of  natural  history,  237-244;  his  religion,  245, 
246;  knowledge  of  musical  science,  247-249;  an  orator,  249; 
printing,  250 ;  astrology,  251;  familiar  with  the  writings  of  the 
emblematists,  255-261  ;  witchcraft,  261  ;  freemasonry,  263. 

Shakspere,  Hamnet,  birth  of,  268;  death,  271. 

Shakspere,  John,  fined  by  town  of  Stratford  for  filthy  habits,  15,  16; 
reputed  an  esquire,  41  ;  coat-armor,  27,  28,  98,  272;  death,  100  n. 

Shakspere,  Judith,  illiteracy  of,  11  ;  arraigned  before  court  at 
Worcester,  275. 

Shakspere,  Susanna,  illiteracy  of,  11  ;  brings  suit  against  John 
Lane  for  slander,  274;  could  not  recognize  her  husband's  MSS., 
276. 

Shakspere,  William,  his  surname,  1,  12-14;  illiteracy  of,  11,  12; 
chirography,  14,15;  epistolary  correspondence,  14;  departure  from 
Stratford,  19,  20  ;  unknown  in  literary  and  social  circles  in  London, 
23  ;  income,  23  ;  retirement  to  Stratford,  24  ;  indifference  to  liter- 
ary fame,  24,  27  ;  occupation  as  a  brewer,  24,  272  ;  litigious,  27  ; 
applies  for  coat-armor  for  his  father,  27  ;  favors  enclosures  of 
common  lands  at  Stratford,  28  ;  inscription  on  his  gravestone,  28  ; 
buried  in  the  chancel  of  the  church,  28;  his  will,  31;  his  bust,  31  ; 
Droeshout  engraving,  35,  91  ;  new  Stratford  portrait,  35 ;  no  claim 
made  by  him  or  for  him  to  the  plays,  36 ;  personal  references  to 
him  by  contemporaries,  37-43  ;  by  Thomas  Nash,  37-40 ;  by  Rob- 
ert Greene,  41 ;  by  Ben  Jonson,  41,  42  ;  no  dark  period  in  his  life, 
155-157  ;  incongruity  between  his  life  and  his  writings,  43,  158,  1 59; 
no  evidence  that  he  ever  visited  the  Continent,  219;  his  parentage, 
266,  267 ;  deer-stealing  tradition,  269  ;  lameness,  270 ;  summary  of 
the  facts  of  his  life,  277. 

Shaw,  Thomas  B.,  on  Shakspere's  illiteracy,  12. 

Shelley,  Percy  Bysshe,  on  Bacon  as  a  poet,  170. 

Sidney,  Sir  Philip,  on  the  state  of  the  theatre  in  the  time  of  Shake- 
speare, 133. 

Simpson,  Richard,  on  contemporary  allusions  to  Shakspere,  39,41. 

Smith,  Goldwin,  concerning  Bacon's  Essay  on  Love,  and  '  Romeo 
and  Juliet,'  138. 

Smith,  William  H.,  an  early  Baconian,  108,  109. 

Sonnet  XLVL,  7. 

Spanish  Language,  Shake-speare's  knowledge  of,  5. 

Spedding,  James,  on  Bacon's  capabilities  as  a  poet,  167,  171,  172; 
on  Bacon's  private  character,  181  ;  on  a  mental  defect  in  Bacon, 
227,  228. 

Standard,  the  (London),  on  parallelisms  between  Bacon  and  Shake- 
speare, 79,  80. 

Stapfer,  Paul,  on  Shake-speare's  knowledge  of  Latin,  2  ;  com- 
mendation of  Gervinus,  2  ;  his  opinion  of  Shake-speare's  learn- 
ing, 6,  9. 


Index.  295 

Staunton,  Howard,  on  Chettle's  apology,  153. 

Steevens,  George,  his  opinion  of  the  Shake-speare  sonnets,  \zz. 

Stratford-upon-Avon,  illiteracy  of  the  people  of,  15;  condition  of 

its  streets,  15,  16;   social  character,   19;   dramatic  performances 

prohibited,  37. 
Swinburne,  Algernon  C,  on  soliloquies  in  '  Hamlet,'  113;  succes- 
sive changes  in  the  text  of  '  Hamlet,'  204. 
Swing,  David,  on  the  Baconian  theory,  155, 


Taine,  H.  A.,  genius  of  Francis  Bacon,  48;  description  of  the 
theatre  in  Bacon's  time,  50 ;  poetic  character  of  Bacon's  prose, 
169;    Bacon's  mind  intuitional,  229. 

Tate,  Nahum,  his  opinion  of 'King  Lear,'  119. 

Tavener,  J.  W.,  minor  points  of  resemblance  in  the  writings  of  Bacon 
and  Shake-speare,  169. 

Tennyson,  Alfred,  criticised  by  'Christopher  North,'  119. 

Theatre,  the,  character  of,  in  Shake-speare's  time,  49-51. 

Theobald,  Robert  M.,  on  colloquialisms  in  the  Promus,  57;  North- 
umberland MSS.,  83;  identical  sentiments  on  the  passion  of 
love  in  Bacon  and  Shake-speare,  139;  the  alleged  dark  period  in 
Shakspere's  life,  157,  158;  character  of  Bacon's  prose,  170. 

'Timon  of  Athens,'  autobiographical  character  of,  116. 

Troilus  and  Cressida,'  preface  to,  109,  no;   prologue,  112. 

Twickenham,  Bacon's  residence  at,  168. 


Ulrici,  Hermann,  on  the  play  of  'Timon  of  Athens,'  117;  on  Shak- 
spere's dark  period,  156,  157;  on  Shake-speare's  knowledge  of 
musical  science,  248. 


Vasari  refers  to  Giulio  Romano  as  a  sculptor,  218,  219. 
Venice,  local  knowledge  of,  in  the  plays,  215-218. 
'Venus  and  Adonis,'  source  of,  2;   date,  15,  269;  scholarly  nature, 
15, 16;  where  written,  16;  dedication  to  Earl  of  Southampton,  271. 
Verplanck,  G.  C,  on  source  of  '  Comedy  of  Errors,'  2. 
Vocabulary,  extent  of  Bacon's,  184  ;  of  Shake-speare's,  185,  280,281. 

Walter,  James,  his  True  Life  of  Shakspere,  201, 

War,  Shake-speare's  philosophy  of,  68. 

Warwickshire,  dialect  of,  145-148. 

Watts,  T,  on  the  metre  of  the  Sonnets,  201. 

Waverley  novels,  the,  concealed  authorship  of,  88,  89,  127. 

Weed,  singular  use  of  the  word  by  Bacon  and  Shake-speare,  224. 


296 


Index. 


Welsh,  Alfred  H.,  on  Bacon's  literary  style,  47. 

Weis,  John,  on  parallelisms  in  Bacon  and  Shake-speare,  79. 

Whipple,  Edwin  P.,  on  incongruity  between  Shakspere's  life  and 
his  writings,  43;  poetic  character  of  Bacon's  prose,  171  ;  Bacon's 
philanthropy,  182. 

White,  Richard  Grant,  on  Shake-speare's  knowledge  of  Latin,  2 ; 
of  Greek,  3 ;  of  Italian,  4 ;  of  French,  5  ;  finds  traces  of  Shake- 
speare in  Alcestis  of  Euripides,  5 ;  Shake-speare's  academic 
studies,  6;  wisdom  in  '  Troilus  and  Cressida,' 6;  Shake-speare's 
knowledge  of  law,  7,  231  ;  illiteracy,  12;  condition  of  Stratford 
streets,  19 ;  tragedy  of  '  King  Lear,'  20 ;  Shakspere's  social  posi- 
tion in  London,  23;  pitiless  biographers  of  Shakspere,  27;  bust, 
32;  Droeshout  engraving,  35;  a  "miraculous  miracle,"  43 ;  Pro- 
mus,  57;  plagiarism  from  Montaigne  in  'Tempest,'  86;  Shake- 
speare's motives  as  a  writer,  144,  145  ;  doggerel  in  Shake-speare, 
164. 

White,  Thomas  W.,  on  false  Latin  in  '  Love's  Labor 's  Lost,'  2  ;  on 
Shake-speare's  insensibility  to  the  gross  passion  of  love,  140,  141. 

Whittier,  John  G.,  on  the  authorship  of  Shake-speare,  278. 

Wigston,  W.  F.  C,  on  Freemasonry  in  Shake-speare,  263. 

Winstanley,  William,  on  illiteracy  of  Shakspere,  11. 

'  Winter's  Tale,'  the,  criticised  by  Ben  Jonson,  94 ;  statue  of  Her- 
mione,  218,  219. 

Wise,  John  R.,  on  Warwickshire  provincialisms,  147  ;  ideal  Shake- 
speare, 266. 

Wit,  Bacon's,  137. 

Witchcraft,  in  Bacon  and  Shake-speare,  261-263. 

Withers,  George,  on  Bacon  as  a  poet,  167. 

Wordsworth,  William,  rank  of,  119;  on  pathetic  character  of 
'Othello,'  156;  Ode  to  Immortality,  165;  Peter  Bell,  165. 

Wyman,  W.  H.,  concerning  the  earliest  doubts  on  authorship  of 
Shake-speare,  118. 


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